THE SANCTUARY SCHOLARS Meet the displaced academics rewriting the future

THE SANCTUARY SCHOLARS Meet the displaced academics rewriting the future

From Behind The Lines with Arthur Snell by Arthur Snell

March 24, 2026 · 1h 6m

About this episode

Arthur Snell interviews Sanctuary Scholars from Somerville College Oxford, focusing on their experiences as displaced academics and their contributions to their home countries.

As a special partnership with Somerville College Oxford, it was my huge pleasure to be able to interview three of their Sanctuary Scholars - young academics displaced by conflict now pursuing their studies in Oxford, but at the same time making change in their own countries - rewriting the future. Dr. Hadeel Abdelseid Hadeel was still a medical student in Sudan when the civil war broke out again in 2023. She went straight from attending lectures to treating gunshot wounds in improvised PPE, using tutorials shared via smartphone. Hadeel has since gone on to become a Director of Sudro, a developmental network providing rapid, tech-enabled health programmes to relieve crises in Sudan and across Africa as they occur. The recent projects on which Hadeel has led or contributed include treating gender-based violence during the conflict and training volunteer counsellors working with children orphaned and severely traumatised by the conflict. Despite experiencing acute trauma herself, Hadeel is a beacon of warm humanity, humour and resilience, who somehow manages to organise her directorship of Sudro and managing a network of over 80,000 Sudanese volunteer emergency care-givers all while…

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