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Sudan

Society

My Broken Khartoum: An Architect's Eye On Her Once Vibrant Hometown

Khartoum, one African capital that hadn't seen fighting in its recent history, is in the grip of a civil war between rival military forces. How it looks to an architect who grew up in the heart of its creative energy.

-Essay-

The city has always been a hub of creativity. It was awarded the title of Arab Capital of Culture in 2005. Despite its Arab affiliation, the capital of Sudan is also very African. A tension of identities — British colonial, African, Islamic — made Khartoum what it was.

This triple heritage is powerfully reflected in Greater Khartoum’s composition as three towns separated by rivers with a network of bridges. Omdurman is considered a national capital, the symbol of the values of the people, while Khartoum is the administrative capital and Bahri (or Khartoum North) is the industrial town. Together, they are simply known as Khartoum.

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Why Sudan's Conflict Makes The Gulf Monarchies So Nervous

Located on the shore of the Red Sea, rich in natural resources, Sudan is strategically important to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Worried about a conflict that is getting bogged down, Arab capitals are mobilizing behind the scenes, with initial "pre-negotiation" talks beginning Saturday in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.

DUBAI – The war of the Sudanese generals has both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi worried — and there is no sign that the crisis in Sudan will end soon.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia was hosting the first face-to-face "pre-negotiation talks" between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the port city of Jeddah, across the Red Sea from the Sudan coast.

The African nation is of strategic importance to the Gulf powers, which are ensuring a diplomatic but also economic presence there. That has increased notably since 2017, after the lifting of the decade-long, U.S.-led embargo on the Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir accused of supporting international terrorism. Since then, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been investing massively in the country, particularly in infrastructure and agriculture.

With its fertile lands, and a rainy season that benefits at least half of the country, Sudan offers agricultural potential for the countries of the neighboring desert peninsula, which have planned to make it "the breadbasket of the Gulf."

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Sudan's Humanitarian Crisis Is Forcing Refugees To Cross Into Egypt

More than 14,000 Sudanese people have already crossed the border into neighboring Egypt to flee the conflict in their country. On arrival, they say there are chaotic scenes.

ASWAN — In a makeshift tent, as Nubian music buzzes in the background, Aïda Hussein prepares some “jabana." She sells this spiced coffee for a small sum to her compatriots, exhausted after their days-long ordeal escaping the violent battles that have shaken Sudan for more than two weeks.

The clashes between Abdel Fattah Al Burhan’s armed forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have already killed more than 528 people and injured 4,599, according to official reports. The generals shared power following a coup in October of 2021. Egypt supports the Sudanese armed forces, despite not having officially positioned themselves in relation to the conflict.

Fighting continues despite a ceasefire. "The scale and speed at which events are unfolding in Sudan (are) unprecedented," the United Nations said in a statement on Sunday, before sending their chief of humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, to the region.

While most of the 75,000 people who fled according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are internally displaced, some were able to take refuge abroad. According to the Egyptian authorities, more than 14,000 Sudanese nationals crossed into Egypt last week.

They arrived through one of two border crossings. Some 20,000 people have also taken refuge in Chad, very close to western Darfur. Another 6,000 have taken refuge in the Central African Republic, while others have gone to Ethiopia.

One of the first drop-off points for refugees is Karkar’s bus station. It is a three-hour drive from the border and around 30 kilometers south of the touristic city of Aswan. New arrivals describe a chaotic reception, a situation they did not expect from a combat-free zone.

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How Fighting In Sudan Could Reignite The Darfur Conflict

Sudan is descending into all-out civil war. This risks upsetting the fragile peace in Darfur, raising the specter of more atrocities and massacres.

-Analysis-

PARIS Ceasefires come and go, providing just a pause amid relentless fighting.

Nothing stops the two forces that have turned Khartoum and parts of Sudan into battlefields: the two generals who are fighting each other — army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemetti — are mortal enemies who swear they will not negotiate.

Foreign nationals have been evacuated, and the civilian population hides or flees when they can to neighboring countries. The United Nations issue warnings of a large-scale humanitarian disaster; Sudan is approaching a "breaking point," according to the UN humanitarian affairs chief.

But Sudan may only be at the beginning of an even greater tragedy. The news from Darfur, the westernmost region of Sudan on the border with Chad, is alarming. Reports indicate renewed fighting between armed groups that rekindle the specter of massacres from the 2000s.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Sudan And The Specter Of A Proxy War

Hundreds are dead, thousands are injured and the health system is collapsing in Sudan. It's a war being fought by two factions of the armed forces in Sudan that risks escalating when outside forces, from Egypt to the UAE to Russia's Wagner Group, step in.

-Analysis-

The two men fighting in this power struggle embody two versions of the same oppression for the Sudanese people. The 2019 revolution in Sudan tried to peacefully overthrow that system, but as often happens in history, the movement has been hijacked by those who believe that power is at the end of a gun.

In 2019, Sudanese people rose up against Omar al-Bashir, a man indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, after 30 years of Islamist dictatorship. However, this democratic revolution was hijacked by the military, specifically by the two main players in the current war: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chief of staff, and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, better known as Hemetti, a militia leader.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Violence In Sudan, And One More Democratic Uprising In Vain

More than a decade after the Arab Spring gave hope of a wave of democracy in North Africa and beyond, the violence that has erupted in Sudan squashes hope in that troubled nation of a democratic future.

-Analysis-

PARIS — A few months ago, when we still wanted to believe that the Arab Spring was not completely dead, we were careful about mentioning Sudan and Tunisia. News was coming in from Tunisia, where that wave of democratic revolutions had begun more than a decade ago, that the North African country had taken a worrying authoritarian turn with President Kaïs Saïed. And now in Sudan, violence has erupted over the past two days between two military branches that has left dozens dead.

Sudan, a huge country bridging both the Arab and African worlds, joined the second wave of democratic uprisings in 2018. The country had been under the rule of an Islamist dictator, Omar Al-Bashir, for three decades. The impressive demonstrations led by all segments of society led to Bashir being overthrown by the army in 2019.

Since then, Sudan has been trying to find a path between the demands of its active and well-structured civil society and the army, which refuses to yield power. On Saturday, a showdown broke out between two armed forces. Among the victims were many civilians and aid workers caught in the crossfire.

Two strong men at the head of a country is one too many. The same goes for two armies.

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This Happened

This Happened - April 8: An Iconic Image Of Female Power In Sudan

This famous picture taken during the Sudanese revolution in 2019 depicts Alaa Salah, a young Sudanese woman, standing on top of a car and leading a crowd of protesters.

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eyes on the U.S.
Alex Hurst

Eyes On U.S. — When African Leaders Go To Washington, China Is In The Room

-Analysis-

Some 100 of the most important political eyes in Africa aren’t turned towards the U.S. this week — they’re in the U.S. For the first time in eight years, the White House is hosting 49 African heads of state and leaders of government (and the Senegalese head of the African Union) for a U.S.-Africa summit. Not invited: any nation that has recently undergone a military putsch, or otherwise not in good standing with the African Union, like Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Sudan.

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Society
Eva Sauphie

Unzipped! The African Women Breaking Taboos Of Sexuality

In countries and communities where sexuality is often kept under wraps, more and more women are taking up their microphones, pens and keyboards to talk about intimate issues without filters.

When the subject of African women's sexuality gets media coverage it's almost always a bad thing, says Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, a Ghanaian writer based in London: "through the spectrum of disease, HIV or repeated pregnancies."

While universal access to sexual and reproductive health services remains a central issue in West Africa, Sekyiamah wants to share other narratives. To do this, she co-founded the blog: Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women.

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Geopolitics
Nesrine Malik

In Sudan, A Surprise About-Face Marks Death Of The Revolution

Ousted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was the face of the "stolen revolution". The fact that he accepted, out of the blue, to return at the same position, albeit on different footing, opens the door to the final legitimization of the coup.

A little over a month ago, a military coup in Sudan ended a military-civilian partnership established after the 2019 revolution that removed President Omar al-Bashir after almost 30 years in power. The army arrested the Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and, along with several of his cabinet and other civil government officials, threw him in detention. In the weeks that followed, the Sudanese military and their partners in power, the Rapid Support Forces, moved quickly.

They reappointed a new government of “technocrats” (read “loyalists”), shut down internet services, and violently suppressed peaceful protests against the coup and its sabotaging of the 2019 revolution. During those weeks, Hamdok remained the symbol of the stolen revolution, betrayed by the military, detained illegally, unable to communicate with the people who demanded his return. In his figure, the moral authority of the counter-coup resided.

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In The News
Jane Herbelin, Bertrand Hauger and Anne-Sophie Goninet

COVID Spikes In EU, Bulgaria Bus Crash, Uber Weed

👋 Tere!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where EU countries face a sharp rise in COVID cases and conflict, at least 25 die in a Bulgarian bus crash, and Uber starts delivering weed. Bogota-based daily El Espectador takes us through the return of gang violence taking over the streets of Medellín, Colombia, which became notorious during the 1970s thanks to drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.

[*Estonian]

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Geopolitics
David E. Kiwuwa

Why This Sudan Coup Is Different

The military has seized control in one of Africa's largest countries, which until recently had made significant progress towards transitioning to democracy after years of strongman rule. But the people, and international community, may not be willing to turn back.

This week the head of Sudan's Sovereign Council, General Abdel Fattah El Burhan, declared the dissolution of the transitional council, which has been in place since the overthrow of former president Omar el-Bashir in 2019. He also disbanded all the structures that had been set up as part of the transitional roadmap, and decreed a state of emergency.

In essence, he staged a palace coup against the transitional authority he chaired.

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