Who am I? 

I am a Sudanese woman, and a qualified medical doctor. Since the outbreak of the civil war in Sudan in April 2023, I have lived in the Gulf with my family. I work at an international organisation headquartered in the US, which works on resourcing refugee-led civil society organisations. In addition, I am a board member of an organisation which is part of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the member of a committee advising the government of a European Union member State in relation to their global health programmes.  

What is this case about?

It has always been my ambition to help build resilient healthcare systems in conflict-affected regions. Ultimately, I intend to help rebuild Sudan’s decimated health system. This year, I was offered a place to study a Master’s course in International Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford. I applied to this course because the University of Oxford is the highest-ranked university in the world in the field of medicine and health. The course focuses on health system design and humanitarian responses. Receiving that offer was one of the proudest moments of my life, and I started to prepare to move to the UK to study. 

However, the Home Secretary has now announced a new policy to prevent people from Sudan, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Myanmar from making applications for student visas, because she thinks they are ‘abusing’ the visa route to claim asylum. 

The Home Secretary’s policy, which she calls a ‘visa brake’, took effect on 26 March 2026. As a result I, and many others, are unable to apply for a visa to take up the offer from the University of Oxford. 

Why do I want to study in the UK?

I have worked in the area of reproductive rights in Sudan for many years now. I have designed policy briefs for global and regional health strategy, working alongside international bodies including the United Nations Population Fund, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), African Union, and European Union.      

My interest is in working in global health policy, in particular on sexual and reproductive health, and in the prevention of major diseases across low-income countries, with a particular focus on Sudan and its neighbours. Sudan is currently facing one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. Mass displacement, the collapse of healthcare infrastructure and interruptions to vaccination programmes have contributed to outbreaks of cholera, dengue fever, measles and other infectious diseases. These outbreaks demonstrate that weak health systems do not only affect local populations. In an interconnected world, strengthening health systems in conflict-affected countries is also a matter of global health security. 

Being able to attend the University of Oxford’s International Health and Tropical Medicine would mean a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to gain knowledge about the design of health systems, global health policy and the architecture of humanitarian response, which will be desperately needed in post-war Sudan.

What is the challenge I am bringing?

I understand the government's concern that visa routes should not be abused. However, the policy applies a blanket restriction based on nationality rather than an assessment of individual circumstances.

My own circumstances demonstrate the problem this causes. I have an established international career, close family ties in east Africa and the Gulf, and a clear professional objective of working in global health in low-income and conflict-affected countries. The focus of my career is supporting health systems in low-income and conflict-affected settings, particularly in Sudan and the surrounding region. My professional ambitions are centred on those contexts rather than building a life in the United Kingdom. 

I have travelled to the UK and to Europe on a number of occasions since the outbreak of war in Sudan – if I had any intention of claiming asylum, I could have done so then, without going to the trouble of applying to (and securing admission to) one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Yet the effect of the Home Secretary's policy is to treat me and hundreds of others like me as ’abusive’ applicants.

Who are my legal team? 

We have instructed the Public Law Team at Duncan Lewis Solicitors which has an excellent track record of bringing complex judicial review claims that are of wider public importance. My team at Duncan Lewis are Toufique Hossain, Manini Menon, Susannah Eley, Shanaya Weerakkody and Isabella Healey. 

Duncan Lewis have instructed an expert counsel team comprising Charlotte Kilroy KC and Grant Kynaston at Blackstone Chambers, and Sophie Lucas at Garden Court Chambers to work on this case.

Why are your donations needed? 

I am raising funds for my own legal fees, and to pay the Home Office’s legal fees if I lose my claim for judicial review. Any unused funds will be allocated according to Crowd Justice’s Unused Funds policy.

Every donation directly funds access to justice for a case that is not just about me, or my place at Oxford. It is about whether the UK government can lawfully bar hundreds of qualified students from some of the world's most conflict-affected countries from accessing higher education, without looking at who they are and what they intend. 

If this challenge succeeds, it will matter not only to me. It will matter for every Sudanese, Afghan, Cameroonian, and Burmese student currently holding a UK university offer that they cannot take up. It will matter for UK universities which accepted these students because of their academic merit. And it will matter for the principle that immigration decisions in this country must be made on the basis of evidence and individual assessment not blanket suspicion directed at entire nationalities.