ASWAN, Egypt — It was the middle of the night, but the first thing Mawahib Mohammed did was make a beeline for the shower, the first she had taken in a week.
As one of the thousands of Sudanese who had crossed the border to Egypt in recent weeks, she had barely slept in six days and used a bathroom only once, she said.
When she got out of the shower, she still felt filthy, she said.
When Ms. Mohammed, 47, returned to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, from Dubai four years ago, she had imagined something different: Helping to build a modern, democratic society after a revolution brought down Sudan’s longtime dictator.
Instead, over the last week, she and her family found themselves running pell-mell from Khartoum as it veered toward civil war.