To the left of the French Embassy in Khartoum this is the car of Fadil, a Sudanese citizen of Greek origin, who landed yesterday morning with his family of 5 in Elefsina. “They came in slippers and in the clothes they were in.” describes “K” his mother, Eleni Paxivani.. “Our house is only 500 meters from the mentioned embassy, ​​but the path was blocked, as shots were heard all around.” She watched the events from Athens with bated breath.

“Since Holy Saturday I have been crucified ten times,” he says characteristically. “We have experienced many crises in Sudan, but none of them compare to the current one,” emphasizes Ms Paksivani, who has been married to a Sudanese man in the African country since 1978 and has worked for twenty years in the former Greek embassy. Fadil, however, described to his mother, who lives mostly in Athens, that “the city was a seething cauldron”.

However, he could not imagine what would happen next. “We have always considered the safest place to be the building block, which includes the Greek church, the cathedral, public institutions and the school,” recalls Ms. Paksivani, “but it turned out to be the most dangerous, as it adjoins the palace. on its northern side is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and on the south is the General Staff of the Ground Forces and the airport. She estimates that it will be a long time before expatriates can return to Sudan. “No one knows what we’ll find, there are rumors that looting has begun.”

It’s Maundy Thursday and Dimitris Tsafos packs a suitcase Sudan. Over the next twenty days, he and his team were to lay submarine fiber optic cables in Port Sudan. “I have worked without problems in most African countries”, an experienced diver reports “K” today.

The next day, a group of five Greeks and one Portuguese had breakfast at the hotel and planned a morning tour of the city. “However, we saw how military vehicles crossed the road through the glass and heard scattered shots, we immediately understood that something was wrong,” the 43-year-old man describes. Internet connection and telecommunications have not been working for the last three days. “We were saved by a neighbor who made an access point.”

“We all lied to our families, assured them that we were safe, but that was not entirely true.”

The first escape attempt failed. “We were ordered to go to the French embassy, ​​but shots were fired, so we returned to the hotel.”

However, on Monday morning, after consulting with the Portuguese embassy, ​​they were picked up by a car from their hotel. “We made a group decision, went the route unaccompanied, only with a Sudanese guide,” he emphasizes, “we all served in special forces and are familiar with crisis management.”

“We walked 40 blocks”

IX it passes through 40 checkpoints – first military and then paramilitary. “On every block they asked the driver questions, the paramilitaries were more aggressive,” he describes, “some of them dragged him out of the car and started beating him.” Many thoughts run through their heads, but they grit their teeth and remain cool.

“They wanted to light the fuse, but we didn’t believe that logic.” Finally, they manage to overcome 12 kilometers in two hours. An Italian transport plane is waiting for them at the airport. “We all lied to our families, assured them that we were safe, but that was not entirely true.”