It’s past noon in Cairo, and the call to prayer marks the start of the working day for many businesses.
As Ahmed leaves his home in Sudan due to war and goes to raise the shutters of a recently opened barber shop in the city, he can’t help but think about his life exactly one year ago.
With less than a week until 2023’s Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, Ahmed was finalizing the final details for the opening of his dream venue in Khartoum.
After seven years of renting suits in Sudan’s capital, he finally raised enough money to open a full-service men’s salon that styles hairstyles to suit suits and helps organize events. .
But just five days before that happened, Sudan’s civil war began, and all the efforts Sudan had put into starting the war were lost.
“We poured all of the capital we had built up over the years to open this store on Eid day, at the very moment the war broke out,” Ahmed recalls.
“Everything was gone. We were in the center of Khartoum where the fighting was going on, so everything had to stop.”
Like him, young Sudanese entrepreneurs lost their projects and dreams within days. Before they had time to comprehend what was happening, they took what little they could carry and fled towards Egypt and an uncertain future.
fleeing war in search of safety
On April 15, 2023, tensions between Sudan’s two main ruling armies, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a military force formerly aligned with the government, escalate to war. did. In 2021, the two sides jointly carried out a military coup against the interim government that was installed after a 30-year uprising against Omar al-Bashir’s government.
One year later, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project estimates that 14,790 deaths have been reported from the war. According to United Nations agencies, 25 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and 18 million face severe hunger, and the International Rescue Committee estimates that more than 9 million people are internally displaced, the world’s largest It is argued that there is an internal displacement crisis. .
According to UNHCR, nearly 500,000 people are reported to have arrived in Egypt after the war, but the actual number may be much higher.
Before the war, the Four Freedoms Agreement between Egypt and Sudan allowed citizens of both countries to freely move, live, work, and own property in both countries.
The deal has been put on hold since tensions erupted in Sudan’s capital and quickly spread across the country, making legal entry into Egypt extremely slow, difficult and expensive for Sudanese fleeing the war. It becomes.
“Luckily, my father had bought some apartments here just two months before the war started, so we were able to come and settle directly,” says Ahmed. african business.
Entrepreneurs Safia El Fadni and Mohamed Abdullah, who were scheduled to get married immediately after last year’s Eid al-Fitr celebrations, were forced to postpone their wedding and travel separately to Egypt.
Safia, who owned Sudan’s first sustainable reusable napkin factory, had to leave the country alone with her elderly family two weeks after the war began. Her home and factory were next to a large military base in Khartoum, and the constant sounds of fighting made her stay impossible.
Her current husband, Mohamed, who previously ran a small marketing company, also had to wait three months after fleeing the country.
This enabled him to help transport some of his wife’s factory machinery and goods to Port Sudan City, which continued to operate at a small production capacity.
“We are working on an initiative called One Million Pads, whose goal is to provide one million pads to Sudanese women who are struggling to find these products during the war. Yes, and our project in Sudan is addressing that,” Safia said. african business From a coffee spot in central Cairo. Since her escape, she has been coordinating everything there remotely.
Due to the unstable situation and infrastructure failures, she is working on opening the first branch of her pad business in Egypt.
Keeping Sudan’s entrepreneurial spirit alive
Mohammed’s 117 Cafe and Restaurant pays homage to Khartoum’s 117 Street, a bustling gilded district of Riyadh that was once a hub for the country’s vibrant young entrepreneurs, and celebrates the resilience of the Sudanese community in exile. It shows respect.
With a modern cafe upstairs and a traditional Sudanese restaurant downstairs, the business serves as a community-building venue, with a variety of small Sudanese brands coming to sell their products. monthly entrepreneurship workshops and talks.
One day, a Sudanese businessman or woman will tell you about her years of experience in Egypt. On another day, someone spoke about employment in Egypt and gave advice on how to overcome the hardships facing Sudanese in the local job market. Everyone shares lessons.
“When we came here, we felt that the Sudanese community needed such activities. We felt we needed to support each other,” Mohammed said. African business.
Build anew, but with hope of return.
Ahmed is one of more than 30 people helping with the event at Mohammed’s home. Hearing the smell of Sudanese incense, the sound of music, and an atmosphere full of ambition and ideas, he feels as if he is in one of the terraces of 117th Street in Riyadh, Khartoum.
He tells the crowd how he was able to launch both a barbershop and a restaurant in less than a year after losing all his capital in his business in Sudan. He also talks about the challenges he faced in pitching his business to an Egyptian audience.
“Some Egyptians don’t trust Sudanese to cut their hair or provide food,” he says.
Although the barbershop is mainly frequented by other Sudanese, he has partnered with an Egyptian company that has helped him adapt the food to Egyptian tastes and markets. A fast food restaurant has opened in the city center.
“I want to go a step further and welcome Egyptian customers as well and compete like any other business.”
Just over a month after opening, Ahmed is delighted to see how well his two businesses are faring in his new country after everything he’s been through in the past 12 months, which he calls the worst of his life. I’m here.
Mohammed’s multidisciplinary space has been open for four months and is already breaking even. And his wife Safia, who is in the final stages of opening a branch of her napkin factory in Egypt, is optimistic about the future of her project.
“Sudan always asks us to try harder. To have a decent, normal life, we have to work a thousand times harder than people elsewhere,” Ahmed says.
“Sudanese are already resilient and when placed in Egypt under the right conditions, they shine and achieve more.”
Despite now facing new challenges, a new country, new bureaucratic hurdles, racism and deep homesickness, Sudanese resilience and hope remain high.
“People have a survival mindset: What happened, what’s going to happen next?” Muhammad says.
The three entrepreneurs would not hesitate for a second if they could return to their home country, but for now they are focused on succeeding in Egypt.
What drives them is the desire to one day return to Sudan and help rebuild their country from scratch. “I want to use the experience I’ve gained elsewhere to build a Sudan where people can live safely and prosper,” Mohammed said.
