“It worked!” With those words, Cees Hack (59) from Lepelstraat looks back on the past 48 hours, in which he fled Sudan at the risk of his own life. He is now in Dubai, with his wife and children. “That’s a bit unreal.”
Cees left for Sudan about four years ago. There he works for a large family business that makes food for the local population. For example, last week he saw up close how the war broke out between the two armies in the country.
Last weekend, Cees already told how his home in the city of North Khartoum had fled to a more southerly and, above all, safer area. There it was waiting for the first evacuation flights to reach the country.
“Broken tanks, destroyed houses and dead in the streets.”
The redeeming phone call came Saturday night. But to get to the airport, Cees and his fellow escapees still had to make the dangerous journey back to the north. “We really encountered all the misery there: broken tanks, destroyed houses and dead on the street.”
Finally, after three hours, the group reached the airport. “Normally you make that trip within 45 minutes. But you have to be so careful to stay under the radar. It’s about simple things: don’t wear sunglasses, drive slowly, open the windows.”
All to pass the countless checkpoints of both armies without any problems. “Last year I visited the American graves in Limburg with my children. Then you see how young those guys were. That is no different in Sudan. All boys aged about 18. And they are standing there with a gun.”
“In Egypt you saw the joy in everyone’s eyes.”
At the airport, the group had to wait another ten hours before they could finally take off with the Hercules aircraft. “At that moment everyone was silent,” says Cees. The real relief came only after landing in Egypt. “That’s where the lamps went on. Then you can see the joy in everyone’s eyes.”
After that stopover in Egypt, the journey continued to Jordan. “We were super well taken care of there. Breakfast was ready and chocolate for the children. And coffee, I was especially happy with that.”
Where most Dutch refugees will travel home, Cees booked a flight to Dubai on his own. His wife and children live there.
The family was reunited in the Emirate on Monday afternoon. “Meanwhile, the adrenaline has left my body a bit. Especially because of a nice cold shower. Tonight we’re going to eat something to the good end and then I’ll go to bed. The past few days have been a roller coaster.”
“I want to go that way again soon. Those people don’t deserve this.”
Roller coaster or not, if it is up to Cees, he will return to Sudan in a while. “When it’s safe again, I want to go that way again. We have to rebuild things. Those people there don’t deserve this.”