CAIRO: When Ahlam Saeed awoke last month to the sound of gunfire and roaring vehicle motors, the 43-year-old widow rushed outside her home in war-torn Sudan to find a line of at least two dozen vehicles, many of them motorcycles carrying armed fighters. “They were firing at everything and in every direction,” the mother of four said. “In an instant, all of us in the village were fleeing for safety.” Many people were gunned down in their houses or while trying to flee.