In the chaos of Sudan's civil war, an elderly British couple living within sight of their nation's embassy in Khartoum found themselves abandoned at the edge of rescue. Abdalla Sholgami, 85, was shot three times by snipers while searching for food; his 80-year-old wife Alaweya Rishwan, disabled and unable to flee, died of starvation in their home. The UK government evacuated more than 2,300 people on 28 flights, yet could not cross the road to reach two of its own citizens. Their story asks an ancient question dressed in modern bureaucracy: who do we leave behind, and why?
British couple left behind in Sudan: man shot by snipers, wife dies of starvation
An 80-year-old woman died of starvation while trapped in her home; her 85-year-old husband was shot three times by snipers and survived.
They could not cross the road? I'm still very disappointed.
Mark
Why does the proximity to the embassy matter so much to the family? It seems like they're saying the Foreign Office should have done more because of geography.
Mimi
It's not just geography—it's the visible contradiction. A British military team arrived to evacuate embassy staff. That team was there, in the capital, with resources. The couple lived close enough that they could have been collected without the military venturing far into active combat zones. Instead, they were told to cross a warzone themselves.
Luke
But we should be careful here. The Foreign Office says consular assistance is "extremely limited" during active conflict. That's a real constraint. We don't know what the actual security situation was on the ground—whether a team could have safely reached that house, or whether the route was genuinely impassable.
Mimi
Fair point. But the family did reach out early, within days of fighting starting. If there was a window to help them, it was then.
Mark
And the wife had a disability, which made crossing a warzone even harder for her.
Luke
Yes, and that's confirmed. But we should note that we're hearing the family's account of what happened. We don't have the Foreign Office's detailed response to their specific request—what they were told, when, and why.
Mimi
The Foreign Office did say the case was "extremely sad," which suggests they're aware of it. But they didn't explain their decision-making.
Mark
So what's the broader pattern here? Were there other British citizens left behind?
Luke
The reporting doesn't say. We know 2,300 people were evacuated, but we don't know how many British citizens were in Sudan or how many were left behind. That's a gap.
Mimi
The scale of the displacement—1.3 million people—puts this couple's tragedy in context. But it doesn't excuse it. They had a specific claim on the British government.
Mark
And now she's dead, and he's in Egypt. That's the end of the story.
Luke
For them, yes. But the question of whether the Foreign Office could have done more—that's still open.
The Pulse
- An 85-year-old British man and his disabled wife were living four steps from the UK embassy in Khartoum when war erupted around them in mid-April, making every street a potential killing ground.
- Rather than collecting the couple from their doorstep, the Foreign Office directed them to cross an active warzone to reach an evacuation flight — a journey that was, for them, impossible.
- Sholgami was shot three times by snipers while venturing out to find food; his wife remained trapped inside, with no rescue coming and no way out, until she died of starvation.
- The UK deployed roughly 100 troops to evacuate diplomatic staff and ran 28 flights carrying over 2,300 people — a scale of operation that makes the couple's abandonment impossible to explain away as mere logistical impossibility.
- The Foreign Office called the case 'extremely sad' but insisted active conflict made in-person consular help unfeasible, even as the family asked publicly: 'They could not cross the road?'
- The case now stands as a pointed symbol of the gap between the state's capacity to protect its citizens and its willingness to do so when the danger is greatest.
In the chaos of Sudan's civil war, an elderly British couple living within sight of their nation's embassy in Khartoum found themselves abandoned at the edge of rescue. Abdalla Sholgami, 85, was shot three times by snipers while searching for food; his 80-year-old wife Alaweya Rishwan, disabled and unable to flee, died of starvation in their home. The UK government evacuated more than 2,300 people on 28 flights, yet could not cross the road to reach two of its own citizens. Their story asks an ancient question dressed in modern bureaucracy: who do we leave behind, and why?
Abdalla Sholgami, 85, and his wife Alaweya Rishwan, 80, lived in Khartoum so close to the British embassy that their granddaughter later described it as just four steps away. When fighting broke out between Sudan's military and the Rapid Support Forces in mid-April, the couple — Rishwan had a disability — called the UK Foreign Office hotline almost immediately. They were not collected. They were told to make their own way across a warzone to reach an evacuation flight.
What followed was a slow unraveling. As food ran out, Sholgami left the house to search for supplies and was shot three times by snipers. His wife remained inside, surrounded by armed positions, with no means of escape and no one coming for her. She died of starvation waiting. Sholgami eventually reached Egypt, where he survived his wounds. His wife did not survive the wait.
The family spoke to the BBC with a grief sharpened by proximity and arithmetic. A British military force of around 100 troops had entered Sudan to evacuate diplomatic staff. The embassy was steps away. 'They could not cross the road?' his granddaughter Azhaar asked. The Foreign Office called the case 'extremely sad' and said the conflict made in-person consular assistance 'extremely limited.'
The broader numbers make that explanation difficult to sustain. The UK evacuated more than 2,300 people on 28 flights after fighting began on April 15, with the last flight departing in May — the same flight the couple had been directed toward but could not safely reach. Meanwhile, the conflict has displaced over 1.3 million people across the region. Abdalla Sholgami and Alaweya Rishwan were two of them — except they had a British passport, a phone line to their government, and a home four steps from its embassy. One of them still did not make it out.
Abdalla Sholgami was 85 years old and lived in Khartoum, Sudan, in a house so close to the British embassy that his granddaughter would later describe it as being just four steps away. When fighting erupted between Sudan's military and the Rapid Support Forces in mid-April, the elderly couple—Sholgami and his 80-year-old wife Alaweya Rishwan, who had a disability—faced an immediate crisis. They reached out to the UK Foreign Office hotline within days of the conflict beginning, asking for help. Instead of being collected from their home near the embassy, they were told to make their way across a warzone to reach an evacuation flight in the capital.
What happened next became a story of abandonment and loss. As starvation set in, Sholgami made the decision to leave the house to search for food. He was shot three times by snipers while outside. His wife remained trapped inside their home, surrounded by armed positions, with no way to escape and no one coming to retrieve her. She died of starvation while waiting.
Sholgami managed to reach safety in Egypt, where he survived his injuries. But his wife did not. When the family spoke to the BBC about what had occurred, they expressed a particular bitterness about the proximity of the embassy to their home and the resources that had been deployed elsewhere. Sholgami's granddaughter, Azhaar, noted that a British military team had arrived in Sudan to evacuate diplomatic staff—a force of around 100 troops. "They could not cross the road?" she asked. "I'm still very disappointed in them."
The Foreign Office acknowledged the case was "extremely sad" but offered little more. Officials stated that the ongoing military conflict made Sudan too dangerous for in-person consular assistance and that the UK's ability to provide support was "extremely limited." They added that the government was taking a leading diplomatic role in efforts to secure peace.
Yet the numbers tell a different story about what was possible. The UK government evacuated more than 2,300 people from Sudan on 28 flights after fighting began on April 15. Those evacuations continued until earlier in May, when the last flight departed—the same flight that Sholgami and his wife had been directed toward but could not safely reach. The conflict itself has been catastrophic in scale. Fighting between General Abdel-Fattah Burhan's military forces and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's Rapid Support Forces has displaced more than 1.3 million people according to the UN migration agency. More than one million have been displaced within Sudan itself, while approximately 320,000 have fled to neighboring countries including Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya.
The case of Abdalla Sholgami and Alaweya Rishwan sits at the intersection of that vast humanitarian crisis and a very specific failure—a couple living steps from a British diplomatic compound, asking for help, being told to fend for themselves, and then being left behind when the evacuation window closed. One of them did not survive it.
Notable Quotes
They could not cross the road? I'm still very disappointed in them.— Azhaar, granddaughter of Abdalla Sholgami
The ongoing military conflict means Sudan remains dangerous. The UK is taking a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to secure peace in Sudan.— UK Foreign Office statement
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Politics & Governance