Our author writes about the fact that the rulers of Sudan destroyed her hometown. But she doesn't lose hope.

Sudanese journalist Lujain Alsedeg, now exiled in Cairo Photo: private

The German translation of this piece written exclusively for TAZ is here

A year ago, after spending eleven days in a war zone, I decided to leave the city where I grew up. Since then, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have continued their brutal fight, destroying Khartoum.

Before the war, Khartoum was home to everything I held dear in my life, the place where my father was buried and where most of my family resides, everything we owned as a family was within the borders of the capital of Sudan, and despite the harsh political and economic circumstances, our collective belief as Sudanese citizens in the security of Khartoum never wavered.

Because for a long time, living in Sudan meant understanding the complicated reality of how warlords fought for Khartoum's power and resources outside of Khartoum. The capital was treated as the civilized face of the country and, to maintain that image, conflicts had to be resolved elsewhere.

During my school years, “elsewhere” meant Darfur and South Sudan. News of rebel groups fighting the government was a distant memory. Local news alienated southern and western Sudanese from the rest of the country, portraying them as savages and thieves. This narrative has its roots in colonial times, when English and Turkish authorities fueled tribalism and racism by favoring northerners with wealth and status. The result was a country torn by civil conflict and large differences in development, access to resources and education between different regions.

John Garang's death instantly divided the capital.

But Khartoum's status as a civilized refuge in Sudan was tested before the recent conflicts; One of the first attempts to jeopardize the “security” of Khartoum that I witnessed when I was still in school was when the leader of the People's Liberation Army, John Garang, was killed in a helicopter crash, a couple of months after the signing of the Naivasha peace agreement in 2005. After his death, 36 people died in riots, where northerners and southern Sudanese attacked each other in the capital, the impact of Garang's death instantly divided the capital between the South and the South. North, a division that was already occurring in the South but was buried under layers of socioeconomic division in the capital.

My memory of the violence after John Garang's death is different from that of the rest of my family and most people in my community, because my school was one of the few institutions in Sudan that encouraged coexistence between Muslim communities. and Christian in Khartoum, despite being founded as a missionary school during colonial rule over Sudan.

The Sisters' School was transformed by Sudanese teachers into a space that does not tolerate discrimination, we were all treated equally within the school facilities, and while the rest of the country had Muslim schools for northerners and Christian schools for southerners , my school provided education. for both of us, and when violence broke out outside, we were comforting each other. Our small community of students and teachers were personally affected by the news, but the shock never turned into violence or tensions, we continued to live together peacefully during and after the riots.

Another attempt to disrupt the fragile peace in Khartoum was in 2008, when the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) launched an armed attack against Omdurman, one of the three cities that make up greater Khartoum, more than 220 people died during the battles that Lasting 48 hours, the attack ended when the JEM admitted defeat and withdrew outside Khartoum. This time the city took longer to recover and harsher punishments were meted out to the perpetrators, including death sentences.

Despite these developments, Khartoum remained the quintessential local destination in the minds of Sudanese, the only place worth investing in and home to more than 6 million people.

Shattered dreams and oppressive conditions

There were also civilian attempts to alter Khartoum's indifference to grievances outside the capital; In 2011 people began to mobilize and protest against the Bashir regime, which had ruled the country since 1989. These demonstrations continued until 2013 despite violent repressive measures, eventually receding for a time amid promises of reforms within the party. ruler and government.

But the promises were never fulfilled and the Secession of South Sudan in 2011 worsened political and economic strife in the country. Then, in December 2018, when the inflation rate peaked at the time, another round of protests began in the Blue Nile capital city of Al-Damazin, and was joined shortly after by Khartoum.

Until December 2018 I had a complex relationship with Khartoum, the love I had for the streets I grew up on mixed with hatred for the shattered dreams and oppressive conditions. During my school days I was protected from first-hand experiences of injustice, at university I was exposed to the experiences of my classmates from all over Sudan, heard their stories about life in refugee camps and in the middle of war zones, and joined to the protests against the centralized state, despite benefiting from it as someone who grew up in Khartoum, I could see at that moment how they harmed the rest of the country, how the few resources that Sudan had were wasted on a select few who had fed and connections.

And hate turned into hope, participating in the protests ignited a sense of responsibility in me, suddenly I was able to channel frustration and anger into actions.

A city that is no longer indifferent

At the time of the April sit-in and the overthrow of the Al-Bashir dictatorship, participating in the protests awakened a sense of ownership over Khartoum, our streets were now filled with memories of participation in a glorious revolution, where hundreds of people They remained peaceful. Until its last breath in the face of a brutal regime, I belonged to a city that was no longer indifferent but aware of its own privilege and actively working to change it. And for the first time I felt proud of my city.

Pride was not shaken even by the coup of 2021, we knew that changing our country was not an easy task and we took to the streets again, this time mobilizing at the neighborhood level and trying to create a grassroots structure that can replace the corrupt. military regime and complicit political parties.

We were prepared to wage a long struggle, using peaceful tools such as civil disobedience and weekly demonstrations.

During the two years after the coup, and despite the violent repression of protests that led to the deaths of more than 100 protesters at the hands of security forces, the de facto leader failed to create a fully functioning government to govern the country. . No one was winning in the fight between the people in the streets and the people in power, and the country seemed to be at a standstill.

Under the apparent state of paralysis, tensions boiled between the SAF and RSF, despite participating in the 2021 coup, the leaders of the two armed forces were at odds over how little power remained in the country.

Believing in a way back

On April 15, 2023, I witnessed Khartoum turning into a battlefield; In the face of violence and heavy weaponry, our arsenal of tools and skills of peaceful resistance were no longer useful.

Leaving was the only thing we could do.

Since then, Khartoum witnessed both sides in the conflict proclaiming victory over the other, when in reality there was nothing left to gain. The destruction spared nothing physically, economically, socially and culturally: buildings were bombed and houses were looted.

The only thing that was not destroyed was a shipment that we carried in our suitcases when we left, a shipment when we returned.

Today, the war in my city turns one year old, our house in Khartoum was destroyed and looted after we left. And the apartment I rented with my family in Cairo never felt like home. We still have daily conversations about what will happen when the war ends, we disagree on how we will know the war is over, there is no authority left in Sudan that can be trusted, there is no guarantee that even if the war were to end for a time while it will not re-emerge with old or new faces of the conflict.

The RSF leader previously said that “if you're not fighting, you don't have an opinion,” and the SAF leader recently echoed this sentiment by declaring that only people who were “resilient” in the face of aggression will govern. of the country, which means that abandoning or not choosing a side in the war will be used as an excuse to exclude people in the future. The attempts to shatter our dreams of returning home have already begun.

But I still believe in a way back, and I don't think it will happen after a big peace declaration or a big gesture from one of the warring parties. I'm just waiting for an opening. A chance for ordinary people to exist peacefully without engaging in conflict and violence, a chance to rebuild our homes and our city, and I would take it in a heartbeat.