From the scorching summer heat to war profiteers and bureaucratic foot-dragging, Sudanese fleeing battles at home have encountered many obstacles — but also help from strangers — on the long road to safety in Egypt.

Among the hundreds of refugee families waiting at the border, some had no passports.

Others would not go further until their husband, brother or son was granted a visa — which women and children are exempt from.

One woman was “sleeping sometimes on the ground, sometimes on a bus” for several days, she told AFP, waiting for her cousin to be issued a visa by the Egyptian consulate in the border city of Wadi Halfa.

She eventually crossed together with a few of her aunts, but “my cousin, he’s still waiting”, a month after fleeing their home in Khartoum, said the woman who asked not to be identified.