Maheen S was travelling around Africa when fighting suddenly broke out in Sudan.
A 22-year-old travel blogger has found himself trapped in Sudan’s capital Khartoum during the heavy fighting between rival generals.
On Tuesday (18 April), a 24-hour cease-fire reportedly went into effect, but violence raged up until the time it was supposed to begin, and it was unclear whether it would hold.
The truce, reported by several Arab media outlets, was to begin Tuesday at 6 pm local time.
Maheen S, who runs the hitchhiking.nomad Instagram account with over 200 thousand followers, started a journey by land through Asia to Africa.
He arrived in Sudan on 12 March and in Khartoum five days before the fighting started. Then he unexpectedly got stuck in the city due to the violence.
“I actually woke up on the first day with the gunshot and bombing sound and the black smoke in the air. So it was so terrifying,” Maheen said in a video filmed in Khartoum on Tuesday.
“We are not getting water. We are not getting any power. We are not getting any electricity to recharge our battery. So that’s the main problem. And water prices are really high.”
The blogger from Kerala, India said that he and the people around him were suffering from no power, no water in supermarkets, and low food supplies. He filmed videos of empty refrigerators and shelves.
Violence suddenly broke out over the weekend between the nation’s two top generals. Each is backed by tens of thousands of heavily armed fighters.
Millions of people were trapped in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low and several hospitals forced to shut down.
On Monday, Maheen S came close to being shot at when a person dressed in army clothing pointed a gun at him after he was trying to go back to his residence.
The fighting didn’t stop him from documenting his journey, however, whether running and hiding from guns or standing over a roof after a blast.
The travel blogger has contacted his embassy and is hoping to evacuate and continue his journey to Ethiopia as planned.
More than 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 wounded, according to United Nations figures, which did not include a breakdown of civilians and combatants.
Watch the video above to see Maheen’s experience while trapped in Khartoum.
Video editor • Hannah Brown
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