At downtown Khartoum's al-Souq al-Arabi, travel agencies helping young Sudanese seek a brighter economic future in Egypt are replacing once-packed hardware stores in a corner of the capital's main commercial hub.
The exodus reflects growing despondence over prospects at home, where the economy has been in free fall and the U.N. says food shortages affect a third of the population. Power and water cuts are common. Anti-army protests have rocked the streets since a coup a year ago.
Following the military takeover, which toppled a civilian-led government that had promised a new economic dawn, the number of those leaving has accelerated, travel agents and migrants say.
Egypt, already home to a Sudanese community estimated at 4 million, offers few of the lucrative jobs that Sudanese migrants have traditionally sought in the Gulf, but it is an easier and often more familiar destination.
Political Cartoons on World Leaders
And while some do travel onward on treacherous Mediterranean trips to Europe, Egypt has notable advantages.
Young Sudanese can travel there cheaply and hunt for work, while families seek healthcare, education for their children and a stable life.
Typhoon Noru left swathes of farmland in the northern Philippines flooded, and at least five dead, as it moved west off the Philippines on Monday, September 26.
The country’s largest and most populous island, Luzon, was worst hit, with gusts of up to 149 mph and waist-high floodwaters leaving families stranded on rooftops. Five rescue workers were reported killed in Bulacan.
With 76,000 people being evacuated from their homes in advance, Noru, known locally as Karding, did less damage and caused less loss of life than had been expected. President Ferdinand Marcos was quoted as saying “I think we may have gotten lucky, at least this time.”
Video footage posted by the Philippine Coast Guard shows a crew from Station Bataan lifting a baby to safety in Castellano, in the municipality of San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija province. The post states a total of 12 people were rescued in the operation. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard via Storyful
"All us young people want to build a future, but you can't do that here," said Munzir Mohamed, a 21-year-old trying to book a bus trip to Egypt at one of the travel agencies.
The owner of a Khartoum bus company said as many as 30 buses were taking around 1,500 passengers to Egypt from Sudan daily, which he said was up 50% from last year, despite sharp ticket price increases. Two travel agents estimated the number of young men seeking to make the journey had doubled in the last year.
There are no publicly available figures to show recent migration trends from Sudan to Egypt. But an Egyptian diplomat said numbers travelling had been on the rise since 2019, when an uprising led to the overthrow of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.
"Movement of Sudanese people into Egypt has been increasing ... gradually and proportional to the deterioration of the situation in Sudan," he said.
The pound has slumped to an all-time low against the dollar after Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng hinted at more tax cuts to come after after last week’s Budget.
Sterling tumbled almost 5pc to as low as $1.0327 in overnight trading, taking it below its 1985 low to the weakest since decimalisation in 1971.
It clawed back some ground to about $1.05, but the sharp decline has fuelled fears it could slump to parity by the end of the year.
Highlighting the dire outlook, the pound fell against every single other currency in the world, from the Albanian lek to the Zambian kwacha.
The latest fall makes sterling the worst-performing G10 currency in the year so far.
The euro also hit a fresh 20-year low amid recession and energy security fears and on signs Italy's far-right alliance is on track to take power.
The Chancellor has brushed off questions about the markets' reaction to his mini-Budget – which outlined the biggest programme of tax cuts for 50 years – after it was announced on Friday.
The measures, which include scrapping the additional rate of income tax and cutting stamp duty, are aimed at fuelling economic growth.
But markets have been spooked amid fears Prime Minister Liz Truss is pushing up public borrowing to unsustainable levels.
Mr Kwarteng rattled traders further yesterday by saying there was “more to come” on tax cuts.
The sharp decline in the pound has fuelled speculation that the Bank of England could be forced to step in with an emergency interest rate rise ahead of its next meeting in November.
TAXES AND FEES
In al-Souq al-Arabi, labourers, electricians, and others who would typically be at building sites idle away the time drinking tea and playing board games while they wait for work.
"We used to hope for five minutes to take a seat. Now I'm sat here all day," said the owner of one hardware store still operating in the market.
Much of the paltry income that shopkeepers and stall-holders can still make goes to higher taxes, dues, and license fees introduced by a government that lost billions in external economic support after the coup, they say.
The finance minister, Jibril Ibrahim, said on Sunday the country would rely on its own internal resources for a second year to fund the budget, despite the government struggling to provide basic services.
Taxes and fees have risen by 400% or more in some instances, business owners say.
"It's impacted us hugely," said the hardware store owner.
Traders shut down main markets in the cities of Sennar and Gedaref this month in protest at the charges. Further closures are due in the city of El Obeid this week. The government, with no new prime minister appointed since the coup, is juggling strikes by electricity and sewage workers as well as trainee doctors over low wages.
The finance ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Official inflation has eased from a high of 423% last year to 117% in August, which businessmen and analysts say reflects economic stagnation. It is still one of the highest rates globally.
The Sudanese pound depreciated by 950% over the past four years, while fuel, once subsidized, has become more expensive than in many wealthier countries.
Business owners say most people can no longer afford much beyond basic goods, causing traders and factories to slow down or close up shop.
Russian shelling hit more than 40 towns in Ukraine in the space of 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said on Monday, as fierce fighting continues to rage in the country’s south.
Russian forces launched five missile and 12 air strikes, as well as more than 83 attacks from multiple rocket-propelled grenades, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said.
In response to the attacks, Ukraine's air force launched 33 strikes, hitting 25 "enemy" areas, the general staff added.
Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, warned earlier that Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats "could be a reality".
both friendly and abusive — to keep up with you. (Photo: Carol Yepes via Getty Images)
Ask anyone. If you have an ex-partner, you probably have checked out their social media accounts at least once, right? Social media “stalking” is often a relatively harmless rite of passage into singlehood. Some people keep the peeping to a minimum, while others check up on their exes a bit more often.
Elena checks in on her ex-partner’s social media whenever she’s feeling “extremely single,” or even just bored. “It can be fun, but there’s definitely a morbid curiosity aspect to it — almost like every time you go to check their socials, it’s a gamble to see if they’ve moved on or not, or whether or not you’re still on their radar,” she said. (She and others are being referenced by first names or pseudonyms to protect their or their ex-partner’s privacy.)
Elena described her relationship with her ex as great, with no signs of toxicity, but they did have a hard time letting each other go. “Seemed like there was always a door left slightly open, so I guess that fueled some of the ‘stalking,’” she explained. She has checked up on her ex on “basically any platform that I know he’s active on,” including Instagram, Venmo, Spotify and LinkedIn.
She said Venmo and Spotify usually reveal the most information.
“I like to check up on Venmo because it can tell you who they’ve been hanging out with and give you a little insight on what they’ve been up to. If there’s a transaction between him and some girl with the memo ‘drinks 🍹’ or something of that nature, it’s a fun little game to go down the ‘stalking’ rabbit hole and see what his relationship might be to said girl,” Elena said. “One time I found out an ex was getting a new tattoo through Venmo, so sometimes it’s just funny little updates like that.”
"He wants to scare the whole world," he said. "I don't think he's bluffing. I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat. We need to keep putting pressure on him and not allow him to continue."
The US has warned the Kremlin that Russia will face “catastrophic consequences” if it uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
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10:46 AM
IAEA chief ready for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant talks this week
UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has said he is ready to hold talks in Ukraine and Russia this week on setting up a protection zone at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine that he says is needed urgently.
"There is a plan on the table to do it. Last week I had an opportunity to start consultations with Ukraine and with the Russian Federation ... and I am ready to continue these consultations in both countries this week," Mr Grossi told a meeting of IAEA member states.
10:19 AM
School shooting death toll rises to nine
At least nine people were killed, including five children, in a shooting at a school in the city of Izhevsk in central Russia, investigators have said.
"Nine people were killed because of this crime, including two security guards of the educational institution and two teachers, as well as five minors," Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement on Telegram, adding that the attacker "committed suicide".
09:57 AM
OECD cuts world GDP growth forecast over Ukraine war
The world economy will take a bigger hit next year than previously forecast due to the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine, the OECD said Monday.
The organisation slashed its 2023 global growth forecast to 2.2 per cent, down from 2.8 per cent in its previous estimate in June, with Europe's economic powerhouse Germany falling into recession.
09:32 AM
At least six dead in Russia school shooting
A gunman killed six people a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk, Russia's interior ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
The Udmurtia branch of the interior ministry said the gunman had killed himself and that 20 people were wounded.
News agency RIA cited Governor Alexander Brechalov of the Udmurtia region, of which Izhevsk is the capital, as saying that an unidentified man had entered the school and killed a security guard. He said that there were dead and wounded among the school students.
09:20 AM
Thousands of Russians have fled to Finland to escape mobilisation
Almost 17,000 Russians crossed the border into Finland during the weekend, an 80 per cent rise from a week earlier, Finnish authorities have said.
Captain Taneli Repo at Finland's southeastern border authority said: "The queues continue to be a bit longer than they've usually been since the pandemic."
Young Russian men who spoke to Reuters after crossing into Finland via the Vaalimaa border station last week, some three hours by car from Russia's second-largest city St Petersburg, said they left out of fear of being drafted for the war.
The Finnish government, wary of becoming a major transit nation, on Friday said it will stop all Russians from entering on tourist visas within the coming days, although exceptions may still apply on humanitarian grounds.
That may push more people to leave. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), "anticipates that more people will consider migration as an option," a spokesman for the U.N. agency said in reference to Sudan.
MENIAL JOBS
Circumstances in Egypt are also difficult with inflation running at its highest in almost four years, and almost a quarter of youths unemployed, according to the International Labour Organisation.
Sudanese youth often end up working menial jobs in factories, gold mines, or as domestic help, travel agents and migrants say. But they have a community to lean on, and can earn more than at home.
"My whole family in Sudan worked and we still weren't making much, and it would all go towards food," said 23-year-old Malaz Abbakar, who moved to Egypt two years ago.
Now, she says, she's able to send her family up to 120,000 Sudanese pounds ($208) per month working as a babysitter.
Stores selling Sudanese foods have cropped up in Cairo, private schools advertise Egyptian branches on billboards in Khartoum, and many travel to Egypt for healthcare that's become expensive or unavailable back home.
For some, like 23-year-old Adam from war-stricken Darfur, Egypt is a stopover before the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe.
"It's dangerous but it's better to risk it and have a good life than to suffer in poverty and hopelessness," he said as he queued for a visa at the Egyptian consulate in Khartoum, along with dozens of other would-be migrants.
The gunmen, clad in black and wearing a black balaclava, shot the school security guard before walking into the school, opening fire on children, many of them as young as seven years old, according local media accounts.
Panic-stricken children fled the school during the attack, as police with pistols raised rushed up stairwells and along school corridors, according to video aired by independent local media.
The school shooting, in the capital of the Russian republic of Udmurtia, occurred on the same day that a young Russian man shot the head of a local military enlistment office in the Irkutsk region of Siberia.
If the Supreme Court adopts the theory, it will radically reshape how federal elections are conducted by giving state lawmakers independent authority, not subject to review by state courts, to set election rules in conflict with state constitutions.
The conference’s brief, which was nominally filed in support of neither party, urged the Supreme Court to reject that approach, sometimes called the independent state legislature theory. The Constitution, the brief said, “does not oust state courts from their traditional role in reviewing election laws under state constitutions.”
The case, Moore v. Harper, No. 21-1271, will be argued in the coming months. It concerns a congressional voting map drawn by the North Carolina Legislature favoring Republicans that was rejected as a partisan gerrymander by the state’s Supreme Court. Republican lawmakers seeking to restore the legislative map argued that the state court had been powerless to act.
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