- Written by Zeinab Mohamed Salih
- Letters from Africa series, Sudan
As a reporter, I'm not supposed to cry during interviews, but I've been crying a lot lately.
Before December, when I went on a reporting trip from my home in Omdurman, a Sudanese city across the river from the capital Khartoum, all I could see out the window was people transporting the bodies of their loved ones in cars. shoulder.
It was too dangerous to go to a proper cemetery, so they were looking for a space along the road where they could bury the bodies.
The civilians who died, many from bullets and shells, were collateral damage in a war that had begun just a year earlier. Two powerful Sudanese military leaders are at odds over the country's political future after seizing power in a coup in 2021.
I lost many friends and acquaintances.
The hustle and bustle of my close-knit working-class neighborhood has been replaced by silence, with military planes presaging airstrikes as the military targets areas held by fighters from the rival militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The sound was occasionally interrupted. group.
People will run from their homes for fear of being attacked.
I remember that on April 15th last year, my fellow journalists and I were looking forward to breaking the Ramadan fast in the evening. I then planned to reunite with a childhood friend I had lost for a long time.
We never met and still don't. He left the country, but I stayed.
That morning, I started seeing social media posts about RSF attacks near the city and started to feel anxious. Then I read about a crash at an international airport. Still, I thought the violence would end.
But when a third friend posted that there was fighting at the presidential palace, I knew this was a war.
While many others decided to leave the city, my family and I stayed put. We were hopeful that the war would end soon, believing that the international community might step in to stop this madness, but the suffering of the Sudanese people was apparently ignored.
Residents feared not only urban fighting but also armed groups coming to loot from both sides. They stripped the house and took everything from cars to spoons.
I'm back in Omdurman, but I can't get home. We received reports of even doors and windows being torn off and taken away.
As the conflict dragged on, little aid reached the city and people began to look thin and pale due to lack of food and drink. The only small market in my neighborhood was bombed by airstrikes as the military tried to wipe out the RSF.
The remaining hospitals were treating only war-wounded people, and those with other symptoms were not being seen. My diabetic grandmother died without receiving treatment.
I also became very ill from lack of food.
The only functioning clinic was 30 minutes walk away.
My cousin accompanied me, but we had to stop in the shade every two minutes as it drained our energy.
One doctor on duty prescribed medication for me. Thanks to a friend in Europe, I managed to get some medicine.
image source, Getty Images
The situation has worsened in Omdurman and Khartoum, but the worst-affected region is western Darfur, where the conflict has taken on an ethnic dimension.
I came here more than three months ago to report on what was happening in response to last year's mass killings in cities such as Juneina, the capital of West Darfur state.
The United Nations said more than 10,000 people were killed in the city in two massacres.
People have told me about ethnically targeted murders and sexual violence. They remain traumatized months later.
Everyone cries when they hear about their experiences. I also couldn't hold back my tears and had trouble sleeping.
My night was also disturbed on a trip to Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, as airstrikes hit the city at night, shaking everything and waking everyone up.
We've been trying to tell our story, but it feels like the world is turning a blind eye. International attention has focused on Gaza, but previously on Ukraine.
The international community must intervene to put pressure on both countries and their regional supporters to stop this war. Without pressure, there is no end in sight.
It is heartbreaking to see my country fall apart, and I risk making the situation even worse by arming ordinary people from both sides.
