HASSAN I. Ali Hamid, a Sudanese office controller, has been working in the United Arab Emirates for more than 45 years. When the news of fighting between two army factions began last April 15, his thoughts were with his family.
His wife, Evelyn, a Filipina from Sultan Kudarat, and their daughters Bothina, Maryam and Jehan are in Sudan.
“When he heard the Sudan crisis, the houses were bombed and the impossibility to enter the country, he cannot do anything but to cry and pray for the safety of his family,” Migrant Workers Secretary Susan “Toots” Ople said.
Ople was in Egypt overseeing the DMW team in assisting the transport of the Filipino evacuees from Sudan at the Egyptian border to Cairo.
Ali Hamid called the Philippine Embassy in Egypt and was informed that his entire family has been evacuated from Khartoum. He then immediately took the first flight from UAE on Sunday, still praying that the land journey to Egypt would be safe.
Ali Hamid went to a hotel in Cairo where the Filipino repatriates were billeted. However, he could not find his family. Then, he saw Ople and DMW Undersecretary Hans Cacdac and inquired. He gave his wife’s name and upon checking, he realized he was waiting at the wrong hotel!
The DMW team brought him to the Royal Marshal Hotel Sunday evening.
Then at the lobby, he beamed as his wife and children approached him. Ali Hamid couldn’t contain his relief, hugged, kissed them, and cried uncontrollably. Evelyn and her children also cried as they held one another in a long, tight embrace.
Ople shared the video of their reunion with reporters covering DMW.
Ali Hamid “promised not to leave his family again because for him after all family matters,” Ople said. Evelyn and the three daughters are one of the 340 Filipinos who were extracted by the Philippine Honorary Consulate in Khartoum and Philippine Embassy in Cairo last week. They boarded seven buses that crossed the border of Egypt.
Ople said Hassan and Evelyn met in UAE. Evelyn was also an expatriate worker in UAE at that time, and they got married in 2004.
In 2005, they visited Tacurong and spent a year there.
After their stay in the Philippines, both decided to stay in Sudan. However, Hassan still needed to work in UAE.
Since 2019, Hassan is an office controller at Darwish bin Ahmad Co. in UAE. His last vacation was in 2021 with his family in Sudan at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, making sure his family is safe.
Hassan sincerely thanked the Philippine government for the assistance extended to his family, bringing them safely to Cairo, Egypt.
So far, the Philippine government has extracted more than 750 Filipino workers, students and spouses, and children of Sudanese from Sudan.
Philippine Ambassador Ezzedin Tago said another 14 Filipino evacuees left the Sudan-Egypt border after they were granted visas for Egypt at the Goustal border.
Tago thanked the Egyptian government for giving access to Filipinos to cross the border.