Hassan – originally from war-ravaged Sudan – gained asylum in Luxembourg in October 2025.

But his journey began with a prison escape from Khartoum, leaving behind a wife and family members in Sudan he hasn’t seen since. He then made a perilous 4,500km journey through Africa, across the Mediterranean Sea and through Europe, before landing in the Grand Duchy.

Hassan is not the 26-year-old’s real name as he did not want to be identified for security reasons. But he is one of thousands of people who have fled Sudan since civil war began there three years ago. This is his story.

Life before war

War in Sudan began in April 2023, as fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Now millions of people have been displaced, there has been severe damage to the country’s health system and the United Nations has described the situation as “the world’s worst health and humanitarian crisis”.

But before the conflict broke out Hassan was a university student in Sudan’s capital city Khartoum and also owned a kiosk. It was at the university where he met his wife, who he married in 2022. When the war started his university closed and three years on, he does not know where his wife is or if she is even still alive.

“I had a normal life,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t decide to leave Sudan, I just ran away from the paramilitaries.”

“It was not my intention to go to a country I don’t know,” he added.

At the beginning of the interview with the Luxemburger Wort, Hassan seems nervous as he talks about his experiences. This is partly because he is speaking in a language he has only been learning for a few months: French. © Photo credit: Chris Karaba

Hassan’s personal involvement in the conflict began in April 2023 when RSF soldiers arrested him at his kiosk.

“I was in prison for three days,” he said with a quivering voice. “They beat me. They forced me to work for them. If I refused, they said they would kill me.”

Hassan has no evidence of his arrest, but a 2025 report from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights details arbitrary arrests in Sudan. It said detainees were subjected to “severe forms of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, with the RSF typically using beatings and electric shocks.”

Prison escape

The now 26-year-old and other inmates escaped from the prison by smashing a window and fleeing. But Hassan lost a cousin he had been with in the cell during the escape.

“He climbed out of the window in front of me, it was chaos, then I couldn’t see him anymore,” he said. “I saw dead bodies lying on the street as I fled.”

Hassan’s two younger brothers (pictured) live with their mother in a refugee camp in Chad © Photo credit: Chris Karaba

Hassan had wanted to flee to North Darfur in east Sudan as he believed his mother and two younger brothers to be in a refugee camp there. But when he got closer, the region’s main city of Al-Fashir had been besieged by paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Forces.

From Africa to Europe

“If you want to save your life, leave Sudan,” the truck driver who took him near the city told Hassan. It was then that he fled to neighbouring Libya without saying goodbye to his brothers or mother whom he hasn’t seen since.

He spent three days in a Libyan jail – a friend paid for his freedom – before moving to Algeria where he arrived in June 2023.

After a brief stay there he went on foot to Tunisia in November 2023. He then left the country – fearing he would be arrested and deported by authorities there.

“We were so scared,” Hassan said, recalling a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea from Tunisia to the Italian island of Lampedusa where he arrived at the start of 2024. He then moved through Italy and arrived in France before attempting to come to the United Kingdom.

But by mistake he ended up in the Grand Duchy, unaware of where he was or what it was.

“I had to ask a person at the train station to find out where I was,” Hassan said. “I didn’t know Luxembourg. I didn’t even know it existed.”

Life in Luxembourg

Since arriving in the Grand Duchy Hassan has slept in tents under Adolphe bridge with other Sudanese migrants and stayed in refugee shelters in Kirchberg, Mersch and Strassen. He also also been taking French classes online and in-person four times a week. He would also like to enroll at the University of Luxembourg.

Most importantly though he would like to see his family again. The last time he spoke with his mother was in February 2025. As for his wife, he does not know where she is or if she is even alive.