Sudan's War and Pakistani Travellers: Airports, Evacuations and Why We Stand With Sudan's Civilians

By the Kimi Travels Team | Updated October 2026

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When Sudan's war erupted on 15 April 2023, roughly a thousand Pakistanis were living in Khartoum — students, traders, workers and families whose city became a battlefield within a weekend. The Embassy of Pakistan was itself struck by gunfire in those first days, and the road home ran through Port Sudan, where PIA flights, naval vessels and Saudi-assisted transports moved thousands to safety. Three and a half years later, the war grinds on and the country remains off every sensible travel list. Haalat theek hone tak safar multvi rahe — until conditions improve, the journey stays postponed. This guide is the honest answer for Pakistanis with family, business or student links to Sudan, and the stand we take with Sudan's civilians.

The War in One Paragraph

Two generals who seized power together in the 2021 coup — Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — fell out over the RSF's integration into the regular army and turned the dispute into the world's largest displacement crisis. The RSF, grown from Darfur's Janjaweed militias, has been documented by the United Nations and Amnesty International committing ethnically targeted killings, mass detentions, sexual violence and the siege of entire cities. The SAF, for its part, keeps blocking ceasefire and arms-embargo measures, convinced of a military victory that never arrives. Both chose the war; civilians pay for it.

Airports and Airspace Reality

Khartoum International Airport was effectively closed for almost three years of fighting; the first scheduled flight since the war began — from Port Sudan — only landed on 1 February 2026, and operations have remained fragile, with flights in and out of the capital suspended into late October 2026 amid drone-strike risk. Port Sudan Airport on the Red Sea is the country's one reliable aviation door, served by a handful of regional carriers with schedules that change on short notice. There are no commercial links between Pakistan and Sudan; any journey today means a Gulf or Cairo connection into Port Sudan, at prices that reflect scarcity — though one new bridge opened this year when Qatar Airways resumed Sudan service on 2 July 2026 after three years away, flying Port Sudan three times weekly from Doha, which puts the Red Sea airport a single stop away from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for families with genuine business there. Overland routing through Darfur is not an alternative — it is the single most dangerous path in the country, combat territory where the October 2025 fall of El Fasher began a still-ongoing atrocity record.

The Pakistani Layer: Embassy and Evacuation Memory

The Embassy of Pakistan in Khartoum continues to operate and remains the first call for any Pakistani national with business in Sudan — registration with the mission is the difference between being on an assistance list and being invisible when something goes wrong. The 2023 evacuation is the reference case for how exits work in a collapsed-security environment: nationals consolidated in Khartoum, moved overland to Port Sudan, then flown and shipped out through PIA sorties, Pakistan Navy vessels and Saudi transport assistance. If you hold family or business ties, keep the files our passport renewal guide and attestation guide maintain current — emergencies do not wait for expired paperwork.

El Fasher and the Atrocity Record

One year after the RSF captured El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, Amnesty International's October 2026 testimony describes a city hollowed out: fewer than 70,000 residents remain of a pre-war population above one million, schools converted into detention centres, torture routine, and Zaghawa and Masalit families singled out for abuse. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has raised famine warnings across Greater Kordofan and Darfur; in mid-October a drone strike on a West Kordofan market killed at least eighty people. And the war's tempo rose again this month: casualty figures in a late-October report recorded more than 300 people killed in drone strikes across Sudan within three weeks, RSF strikes on power infrastructure have pushed city after city back into blackout, and a deepening bread crisis has families queuing for flour that arrives late or not at all. Amnesty has stated plainly that the United Arab Emirates has continued to support the RSF — and the SAF continues opposing the ceasefire and arms embargo Sudan's civilians need. None of this is ancient history; all of it is this month's reporting.

What This Means for Pakistanis With Sudan Links

• No tourism, no student travel, no non-essential trips — every advisory treats Sudan as do-not-travel
• Register with the Embassy in Khartoum if you or family members have any ongoing Sudan connection
• Treat "land route through Darfur" offers as danger or fraud — the scams catalogued in our travel scams guide gain a body count on this corridor
• Emergency exit runs through Port Sudan — know the consulate channels and keep documents ETD-ready, the mechanics in our travel safety guide
• Send remittances through formal channels — family money moving legally arrives without exposing the receiver
• Keep insurance honest — most policies exclude do-not-travel destinations, a limitation the insurance guide explains

Standing With the Innocents

We publish travel content with our politics honest: the same machinery that decides which catastrophes get coverage decided Sudan's would not — a war whose victims are poor, Black and African attracts a fraction of the attention given to crises an hour's flight away. The parallel with Palestine is structural, and we treat it as such in our media-machinery analysis. Standing with Sudan's civilians means naming the RSF's atrocities, naming the outside powers arming them, and refusing the framing that this war is too complicated for simple words: it is not.

Where Kimi Travels Fits In

We will not sell you a Sudan ticket — no honest agency will, today. What Kimi Travels does is keep Pakistani families connected to the region practically: Gulf routings that make sense for reunions, document files that stay emergency-ready, and honest advice about where travel is currently possible. Jaiz safar, sahi waqt par — a lawful journey, at the right time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Pakistanis travel to Sudan right now?
No. There are no commercial Pakistan-Sudan links, Khartoum's airport barely functions, and every advisory classifies Sudan as do-not-travel; Port Sudan is the only operational aviation door — served since 2 July 2026 by Qatar Airways' three-weekly Doha flights alongside the other regional carriers.

Is there a Pakistan Embassy still working in Sudan?
Yes — the Embassy of Pakistan in Khartoum operates and is the registration and assistance point for Pakistani nationals with Sudan connections.

How did Pakistanis get out in 2023?
Through a Port Sudan corridor: overland moves from Khartoum followed by PIA flights, Pakistan Navy vessels and Saudi-assisted transports to safety.

What is happening in El Fasher?
The RSF captured the city in October 2025; one year on, fewer than 70,000 residents remain of more than a million, amid documented detentions, torture and ethnic targeting.

How can I help Sudanese people from Pakistan?
Direct remittances to families through formal channels and supporting credible humanitarian organisations working on Sudan — and keeping the crisis in conversation instead of letting it vanish from the feed.

Have family or business links across the region and need honest travel advice? Kimi Travels tells families from Sialkot and across Pakistan what is possible, what is not, and how to stay ready. Get Honest Travel Advice