Guinean students who were in Sudan arrived in Bissau today.

Nine Guinean students who were in Sudan when the armed conflict began arrived in Bissau this Wednesday and are now hoping to complete their university studies.

“None of us had problems, but after we left, colleagues unfortunately had problems,” said Malam Injay, one of the students who returned from Sudan, unable to hold back tears.

On the day the conflict began in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, Malam Injay and his colleagues were at the university residence.

“We heard shots and there are colleagues who lived in the area close to the military brigade,” he said, visibly moved.

They always stayed in the university residence, which was farther from the zone of greatest conflict, and the rest of the colleagues were transferred there. All the students gathered in the pavilion, he explained to reporters at Oswaldo Vieira International Airport in Bissau.

Asked by journalists how they managed to leave the country, Malam Injai explained that they contacted the Guinean ambassadors in several countries, namely Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that they were also assisted by family members.

A group of nine university students, including one woman, were pursuing higher education in Islamic theology, law and economics in Khartoum.

“We are going to ask for an audience with the President of the Republic so that we can continue our studies,” said Malam Injay, who is a third-year student in economics and politics, but who has colleagues who were in their final year of the course.

The students were received at the airport by Guinea’s Secretary of State for Communities, Salome Allouche, who said it was a moment of “joy and relief”.

“There were moments of panic, but the president of the republic, whose influential magistracy spoke very loudly, and the government quickly intervened. We are happy,” the Secretary of State said.

The government of Guinea-Bissau expelled nine Guinean students from Sudan as part of a joint operation with Senegal.

Salome Allouche stressed that the CEO of the communities was always in touch with the students and highlighted the government’s speed in providing financial support to students so they can return “contrary to what they say on social media.”

The Secretary of State said the students will continue to be monitored, including by a psychologist, as many are still in a state of panic and fear.

This Wednesday, Sudan entered the 19th consecutive day of clashes between the army and the RSF, a conflict that has already left at least 550 people dead and more than 4,200 injured, and forced thousands of Sudanese to move to safer parts of the country or to other areas. countries. find refuge in neighboring countries such as South Sudan, Egypt or Chad.

This Wednesday, the two sides involved in the conflict mark the third and final day of the truce, the third in a row despite ongoing clashes.

South Sudan, the neighboring country and mediator of the truce, announced this Wednesday that two rival warlords, Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have agreed in principle to a seven-day truce starting Thursday.

The fighting came after weeks of tension over security reform during negotiations to form a new transitional government.

Both forces were behind a joint coup that toppled the transitional executive in Sudan in October 2021.