Our author writes about how Sudan's rulers destroyed her hometown. But she doesn't lose hope.

Sudanese journalist Lujain Alsedeg now lives in exile in Cairo Photo: private

You can read the original English version of this text written for the taz here

A year ago, after eleven days in the combat zone, I left my city. Since then, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have continued their brutal war and destroyed Khartoum.

Before the war, Khartoum was my beloved homeland, where my father is buried and where most of my relatives live. Where everything we owned as a family was located and, despite difficult political and economic circumstances, our collective belief in the safety of Khartoum never wavered. Because living in Sudan meant understanding the complex reality of how warlords fight for power in Khartoum and for resources outside Khartoum. The capital was treated as the civilized face of the country and, to save face, conflicts had to be fought elsewhere.

When I was in school, “elsewhere” meant: Darfur and South Sudan. I have vague memories of reports of rebel groups fighting the government there. Local news alienated southern and western Sudanese from the rest of the country, portraying them as savages and thieves.

This narrative has colonial origins, when British and Turkish authorities promoted tribalism and racism by favoring northern Sudanese with wealth and status. This resulted in a conflict-torn country with huge gaps between regions in terms of development, access to resources and education.

Khartoum's historical indifference

Even before the recent conflicts, Khartoum's status as a civilized oasis in Sudan was being tested. He was still at school when South Sudan's SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) leader John Garang died in a helicopter crash a few months after signing the 2005 Naivasha peace agreement that paved the way for the independence of South Sudan. After his death, northern and southern Sudanese attacked each other in Khartoum, killing 36 people.

The shock over Garang's death divided the capital between the south and the north, a division that already existed in South Sudan but was still overshadowed by socioeconomic inequalities in the capital.

I have a different memory of the violence after John Garang's death than the rest of my family and most people in my community because my school was one of the few institutions in Sudan that promoted coexistence between Muslims and Christians in Khartoum. . Although it was founded as a colonial mission school, Sudanese teachers had transformed the Sisters' School into an open space without discrimination; We were all treated equally on school grounds;

While the rest of the country had Muslim schools for northern Sudanese or Christian schools for southern Sudanese, my school offered both educational options, and when violence broke out outside, we comforted each other. Our small community of students and teachers was personally affected, but the shock never translated into violence or tension, we continued to live together in peace.

Another attempt to disrupt Khartoum's fragile peace came in 2008, when the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), fighting in Darfur, attacked Omdurman, one of three cities in the greater Khartoum region. More than 220 people died in two days of battle until the JEM admitted defeat and withdrew from Khartoum.

This time the city needed more time to recover and harsher punishments were imposed, including the death penalty. And yet, Khartoum remained the dream destination of the Sudanese people, a city of more than 6 million inhabitants, the only place in Sudan worth investing in.

There were also civilian attempts to upset Khartoum's indifference to external complaints. In 2011, people began to mobilize to protest against the Bashir regime, which had ruled Sudan since 1989. These demonstrations lasted until 2013 despite violent repression and then subsided under the impression of promises of reforms by the ruling party and of the government.

But the promises were never kept, and South Sudan's secession in 2011 intensified the country's political and economic power struggles. When inflation peaked in December 2018, new protests began in Al-Damazin, the capital of Blue Nile state, and were soon joined by Khartoum.

Hate became hope.

Until December 2018, my relationship with Khartoum was complex. My love for the streets of my childhood was mixed with hatred for broken dreams and depressing living conditions.

While my school days shielded me from direct experiences of injustice, in college I was exposed to the experiences of my peers across the country. I heard their stories of life in refugee camps and combat zones. I joined the protests against the central state, even though I had benefited from this state while growing up in Khartoum. I could see how this state was harming the rest of Sudan and how the country's resources were being wasted on a few with power and influence.

And hate turned into hope. Participating in protests gave me a sense of responsibility. Suddenly I was able to channel frustration and anger into actions.

When the mass sit-ins of April 2019 led to the fall of Bashir's dictatorship, participating in the protests meant taking over Khartoum. Our streets were now filled with the awareness of participating in a glorious revolution where hundreds of thousands of people remained peaceful until their last breath in the face of a brutal regime.

I belonged to a city that was no longer indifferent, that became aware of its privileges and actively wanted to do something about it. And for the first time I was proud of my city.

Not even the coup of 2021 shook pride. We knew that changing the country was not easy and we took to the streets again, this time mobilizing at the neighborhood level and creating grassroots structures that could replace the corrupt military government and its accomplices in the political parties.

Paralysis behind the fighting

We were prepared for the long struggle, through peaceful means such as civil disobedience and weekly demonstrations. But despite the violent repression that left more than 100 dead, the de facto leader failed to form a functioning government. No one prevailed in the battle between the people in the streets and the people in power, and the country was seemingly paralyzed.

Amid this apparent stalemate, tensions rose between the SAF and the RSF. Although they staged a coup together in 2021, the leaders of these two forces disagreed about how little power remained in Sudan.

On April 15, 2023, I witnessed how Khartoum became a battlefield and how, in the face of violence and heavy weapons, our experiences and means of peaceful resistance were no longer of any use.

The only thing we could do was leave.

Since then, both warring parties in Khartoum have declared victory over the other, when in reality there was nothing left to gain. The destruction left nothing behind, physically, economically, socially and culturally.

What happens if the war ends?

The only thing that was not destroyed was the faith we carried in our suitcases when we left: the faith that there is a way back.

Today the war in my city turns one year old. Our house in Khartoum has been destroyed and looted. Our rented apartment in Cairo never made us feel at home. We still talk every day about what we will do when the war is over.

We argue about how we will know when the war is over: there is no longer any authority in Sudan that can be trusted, there is no guarantee, even if the fighting ends, that war cannot break out again, under new or old circumstances. Face.

The leader of the RSF paramilitary forces has said: “If you don't fight, you don't have an attitude.” The leader of the SAF armed forces has said that only people with “resilience” can govern, implying that those who are gone or are. neither side has attacked, it will be excluded in the future. They are trying to crush our dream of returning.

But I still believe there is a way back. It will not come with a grand announcement of peace or a grand gesture from a party in conflict. I'll just wait. Here's to an opportunity for normal people to exist in peace without engaging in violence. An opportunity to rebuild our homes, our city. If this opportunity existed, I wouldn't hesitate for a second.

Translated from English by Dominic Johnson. Read the original version here