It was his first assignment abroad: 20-year-old Salahaden H. helped evacuate Germans as a Bundeswehr soldier in Sudan. And had a particularly important role in it.
The call reached Salahaden H. (name edited) late Tuesday evening. His superior was on the phone: The situation in Sudan was escalating and the decision had been made to evacuate German citizens. It starts in two days. “Then it all happened in quick succession,” the 20-year-old recalls. It was the first assignment abroad for the young corporal in the Bundeswehr. H. has been with the Bundeswehr since the beginning of January 2021, he had signed up as a contract soldier for three and a half years. When he indicated that he was also ready to serve abroad, little did he know what an important role he would play the first time.
Because H. actually works for the Bundeswehr as a driver and in the fire support platoon. But shortly before the flight to the host country Jordan, it quickly became clear that another skill would be needed much more urgently for the evacuation mission in Sudan: the native German grew up bilingual, his family has Syrian-Palestinian roots. He is fluent in Arabic.
In contrast to his team, H. therefore took the next plane from Jordan to the country of assignment: to an airport just outside the Sudanese capital Khartoum. “There was a lot of turmoil there,” the soldier remembers the arrival. Because at the airport, many nations were in the process of evacuating their citizens from the combat zone. At the same time, more and more desperate people hoped to be able to leave the country. H’s job was to act as an interpreter to the Sudanese army and government officials. Sudanese Arabic is very similar to Egyptian, H. understood it without any problems.
The Sudanese were surprised and pleased to meet a German who speaks their own language. Especially since few other “Westerners” approached the Sudanese directly due to the language barrier. “When they realized that we didn’t want anything except to take our people out, they were very accommodating, offering food and protection,” Salahaden H. says of his Sudanese interlocutors. They also helped the German soldiers in dividing the airport into different zones, in which each nation could collect its citizens and look after them until departure.
The Germans who were to be evacuated were first received and registered by the military police. H. met some of them on the way to the evacuation plane: “Everyone was very happy to get out of this situation. But some were also desperate and sad because they had to leave family members behind.”
H. was deployed in Sudan for four days and three nights. When the opportunity arose, he slept mostly in the sand, only a few hours altogether. Sometimes he and his comrades heard gunfire from afar: “It makes you very aware that none of this is an exercise.” Even the desperation of the people has not left him untouched. It helped to talk about it with my comrades.
During the day, the heat added to the tense situation. The thermometer climbed to the mark of 44 degrees: “It was as if someone was constantly blowing a hair dryer in your face.” The whole operation went “physically to the limit,” says H., but also: “We’re trained for that.”
The evacuees cried on the plane
When he wasn’t interpreting for his own commander, H. helped out with the British. Or spoke to a group of frightened Egyptians who didn’t know if they were going to be evacuated. “It helped just to talk to them to take away their fear a little,” says H. In the end, the Egyptians were able to leave the country on the last flight.
H. flew out on the last German plane. In the end, his Sudanese interlocutors gave him their own national badges and gave them his – small gestures of humanity in times of war. On the plane, he saw evacuees crying and laughing: “The whole range of feelings.”
