Port Sudan the exit point for some foreign nationals

Port Sudan has become a focus for foreign nationals hoping to escape the violence by sea -- with passenger ships making crossings to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

But despite the huge numbers trying to get out, there are some who are making their way back to the war torn country so they can be with their families.

One passenger said: "Death will find us anywhere, it is important we are with our families."

Warring factions trying to seize control of the east African nation of Sudan have plunged the country into chaos with at least 400 dead and thousands displaced.

Water and food are in short supply.

One woman told how she had left her one-and-a-half year old child at home while she went on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

"I'm suffering a lot 'til I found a ticket," she said.

At Port Sudan hundreds of displaced people from all over the world were waiting to try and leave on a ferry.

A woman, who was also displaced by the Syrian war, said "We are suffering. Even in Syria we didn't see war like this."

The violence is a result of a struggle for power between two powerful generals and their armies: Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, who leads the Sudanese armed forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.