Born into conflict: A pregnant mother’s journey from Sudan to Ethiopia

Rahama and her five-day-old son at an IOM Migration Response Centre in Metema, Ethiopia. Photo: IOM 2023/Kaye Viray

 Rahama was confronted with two options: to give birth to her third child amid a raging armed conflict in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum or to pack her bags and head towards Ethiopia.

“I was due to deliver my baby at any moment, but I looked through the window and all I could see was smoke everywhere and guns firing from different directions. That’s when I thought that my unborn child and the rest of my family might have a better chance at survival if we left,” says Rahama.

Aboard a crowded bus, the family embarked on the long and perilous journey to Ethiopia carrying with them the little they managed to pack.

Rahama hopes to start a new life with her family in Jimma, Ethiopia where she is originally from.

Six years ago, Rahama and her husband irregularly migrated from their home country of Ethiopia hoping to have a better life in Khartoum. She found work as a cleaner while her husband worked as a cook in a small cafeteria.

“I’ve always wanted to come back because I left my eldest child in Ethiopia, but this was not the reunion I had planned for,” she says.