Cedar Rapids man still trying to get out of Sudan

CEDAR RAPIDS — Jacy Bunnell Ahmed of Cedar Rapids still is trying to get her husband out of Sudan, where a civil war is unresolved and the airport in the capital Khartoum remains closed.

Ahmed’s husband, Mohamed, 38, was back in Sudan for his father’s funeral when the fighting broke out. He was supposed to fly home last Wednesday, but all flights in and out of Khartoum were canceled.

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For the moment, he is safe and staying with family members in Omdurman, across the River Nile from Khartoum.

Ahmed said the plan, at least for now, is for Mohamed to take a bus from Omdurman to the Egyptian border, a day’s journey. Friends would pick him up there and take him to Cairo, another day’s journey. From there, they hope he can catch a flight home, maybe by Wednesday or Thursday.

But there’s uncertainty and danger with that plan, Ahmed said, adding she keeps telling herself the situation will work out.

“It’s stressful,” she said.

The U.S. Embassy, under pressure to evacuate U.S. citizens from Sudan, has not yet made plans to do that, Ahmed said Saturday evening.

“We can’t wire money there, and people there are having to drink water out of the Nile,” she said, as casualties mount.

Her husband, she said, appeared in a video on “Good Morning America” Friday, speaking about conditions in his native country.

Mohamed Ahmed, who immigrated to Iowa 13 years ago as a student at Kirkwood Community College, became a U.S. citizen in 2016. He and Jacy, a former teacher in the Cedar Rapids school district and a former adjunct professor at Kirkwood, now run a commercial cleaning business.