“I am in contact with several pharmacies. I put my number on the Facebook page of the Jerif-Ouest resistance committee, in neighborhood groups and on my personal account. This allows local residents to reach me if they need medicine,” explains Moaaz*. This 19-year-old student, a member of these revolutionary committees spread throughout the territory, works in one of the many “emergency rooms” that have flourished in Khartoum since the start of the war on April 15. Volunteers offer first aid care to the injured or sick, while most hospitals are out of service.
Eight weeks after the outbreak of hostilities between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo nicknamed “Hemeti”, who heads the powerful paramilitary militia of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), more 800,000 residents fled the capital. While at the national level, this figure climbs to 1.6 million displaced to a spared zone or a border state. The fighting is indeed spreading to other regions. The capital of Western Darfur, El-Geneina, is particularly affected.
“It’s one of the worst places on Earth you can be right now,” Fleur Pialoux, project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in El-Geneina, told The New York Times. The provisional report kept by the NGO ACLED (Armed Conflict Location
A true hero on the scale of his neighborhood, the latter crisscrosses the streets on his bicycle, trying to avoid bullets and shells, to supply his neighbors with tablets and other doses of insulin. “For those who can’t pay, we try to raise money directly from my friends or through donations received by the financial office in the emergency room,” the teenager said. However, he had to temporarily suspend his deliveries.
On June 4, the young man was beaten for 3 hours by FSRs. He lost consciousness and has since suffered a mild head injury. Activists are thus regularly detained by one of the two camps and accused of supporting the other. They nevertheless agree to put their lives at risk to help those who cannot leave, unable to pay for a bus ticket – the prices of which have skyrocketed –, held back by a sick relative or even reluctant to abandon their homes to the clutches of bandits.
“I almost died several times,” admits political science professor Bashir Elshariff. A few days ago, I was crossing Bahri market, north of Khartoum, to help a friend when someone shot to terrorize civilians,” he said. This father, who has sheltered his children in his native Kordofan, in the south-west of the country, is taking part, together with resistance committees and political parties, in several initiatives aimed at ending the war.
“I refuse to leave and let other people suffer. These men and women need help in the absence of support from international organizations…”, adds the researcher, specifying that most of his neighbors are deprived of running water. UN aid convoys are trickling in after the World Food Program temporarily suspended operations following the killing of three of its staff in the early hours of the war. From May 24 to June 2, 6,700 tons of food and other vital materials were delivered.
In Omdurman, twin city of Khartoum, Zeinab *, 28, and her three daughters aged 9, 7 and 10 months, have not seen the color. The portfolio of this digitization operator and her husband, employed in a service station, was already small before the war. Since May, they no longer receive a salary. It was impossible for them to pay for the bus to join Zeinab’s family in the southern state of Sennar.
This Thursday, June 8, the couple thought to hold until the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, at the end of June. But the next day, their plans had changed. “The bombardment is getting closer. We couldn’t sleep a wink all night. We will take the road towards the northern town of Shendi, where my husband is from. Tickets are cheaper than for the Sennar, “said the young woman.
In southern Khartoum, engineer Osama* attempts to gather enough to transport his mother and sister to Egypt. First destination of exile, the regime of Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi welcomed more than 175,000 Sudanese. But Cairo has just toughened up its reception policy. From this Saturday, June 10, the visa becomes compulsory for all. Women, children and seniors were previously exempt.
“We live in the district of Gabra-Sud which is under the control of the army,” continues Osama. The Gabra-Nord district is in the hands of the FSR. So we hear shooting every day, from morning to night. There are also a lot of snipers, camped on the roofs of buildings, “describes the engineer. In any case, he will not be able to raise enough money to travel too. “So, I pray,” concludes this activist.
*These first names have been changed for security reasons.
