Turkiye’s Islamic defense consultancy founder dead aged 79

DUBAI: Sudanese freelance photographer Faiz Abubakr documents the crisis in his home country that began in April 2023 when violence broke out between rival military factions.

The Sudanese armed forces, led by Sudan's de facto president, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, have since been locked in a battle with the Rapid Support paramilitary forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagal, commonly known as Hemedti.

Despite the immense danger, Abubakr felt compelled to take to the streets with his camera to document the disaster unfolding in his home city of Khartoum and capture the impact of the bitter general rivalry on its beleaguered citizens.

“Many questions ran through my mind about the lives of these residents who fled daily from the scourge of war, whose houses and possessions were consumed by fire and who died in tragic ways,” Abubakr told Arab News. “These questions were about how they spent their days under the roar of planes and explosions that forced them from their homes and were haunted by the curses of displacement.”

According to the UN, Sudan is now in the grip of the world's largest internal displacement crisis, with millions forced from their homes, including Abubakr, who initially sought refuge in Egypt with his family.

After a few months, he returned to Sudan to work for several news agencies until he was wounded by an RSF sniper. While he was recovering, he and his family moved to Kassala, located in eastern Sudan, near the border with Eritrea.

Abubakr's clients included AFP, Le Monde and The New York Times. Prior to the conflict, he was the recipient of the 2022 World Press Photo Award in the “Africa, Singles” category. Now he's just trying to survive.

“The situation is much worse than before,” Abubakr said. “Life is very difficult due to lack of food and livelihood. Famine threatens in all parts of the country.”

Even while displaced, Abubakr continued to photograph the conflict unfolding around him, particularly its impact on civilians forced from their homes.

“I try to document their stories, but for security reasons it is very difficult to take photos,” he said. “I lost everything during the war, including most of my photographic equipment. My mental state is deteriorating.”

Abubakr is not alone. The conflict has taken a devastating toll on the health and well-being of Sudanese civilians, according to a new report by Médecins Sans Frontières, which has staff in eight Sudanese states.

The population faced “horrendous levels of violence, succumbed to extensive fighting and survived repeated attacks, abuse and exploitation” by the warring parties, the report said.

“Violence in Sudan shows no sign of abating,” Vickie Hawkins, MSF UK executive director, wrote in the report. “In fact, it is intensifying at a rate that exceeds our ability to process, document and respond to the daily events that our teams and patients in Sudan are experiencing.”

The report draws on medical and operational data collected by MSF from 15 April 2023 to 15 May this year. It documents the patterns of violence and abuse observed by MSF teams and the devastating impact of the fighting on public health.

In the report, an unnamed health worker at Al-Nao Hospital in Omdurman, west of Khartoum, described the aftermath of recent shelling in a residential area of ​​the city.

“About 20 people came and died right after. Some arrived already dead,” said the medic. “Most of them came with their arms or legs already hanging, already amputated. Some with only a small patch of skin holding the two limbs together.

“One patient came in with an amputated leg, and his attendant followed him, carrying the missing limb in his hand.”

According to MSF, between August 15, 2023 and April 30 this year, Al-Nao Hospital treated 6,776 patients with injuries caused by armed violence – an average of 26 people per day.

“After 15 months of conflict, the warring parties show a complete lack of respect for any civilian life,” Kyle McNally, MSF project coordinator who was recently stationed in Sudan's southwestern city of Nyala, told Arab News.

“These are the people they claim to represent and fight for. Instead, it is really a war against the people of Sudan in the way they conduct their hostilities. We are witnessing very gross violations of civil protection and attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure.

“Hospitals and medical staff were not spared. We see numerous attacks on medical facilities. The hospital and health system were completely decimated by the fighting.”

According to the UN, Sudan is facing a deepening food crisis, with some 25 million people – including more than 14 million children, 3 million of whom are under the age of five, suffering from acute malnutrition – in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

At least 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence, according to newly released figures from the UN's International Organization for Migration.

“The conflict in Sudan has become one of the biggest displacement crises in the world,” Alyona Synenko, spokeswoman for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Arab News from Nairobi.

“We are talking about a quarter of the country's population who fled their homes. People lost their homes and lost access to basic means of survival.”

The displacement of farmers in particular led to the collapse of Sudan's agricultural sector, exacerbating food insecurity. “Food production has suffered tremendously and we are witnessing a worsening food crisis,” Synenko said.

“We have hundreds of people calling us in desperation because they don't know what happened to their loved ones. We have more and more families who are separated and have lost any possibility of contact with each other.”

During the first half of 2024, the ICRC collaborated with the Sudanese Red Crescent to provide emergency aid and basic services. However, her efforts have been thwarted by the security situation, administrative problems and difficulties in accessing communities.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan's troubled Darfur, where allegations of ethnic cleansing and attacks on hospitals have emerged.

“We saw complete devastation throughout the city of Nyala, which used to be Sudan's second most populous city,” said McNally of MSF.

“The entire northern half of the city is almost completely destroyed. Everywhere you see a complete lack of basic services. There has been virtually no international humanitarian response in this part of the country.

“You really see people struggling. You have residents who have stayed, and then you also have IDP camps around with hundreds of thousands of people. You see a lot of people who are incredibly desperate and very little help is getting to them right now.”

According to Abubakr, Sudanese civilians are suffering particularly badly in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Force. The paramilitary group now controls most of Khartoum, Al-Jazirah, Kordofan and the vast western region of Darfur.

Of particular concern are the reports of sexual and gender-based violence emerging from across the country, but particularly from Darfur.

An MSF survey of 135 victims of sexual violence treated by MSF teams in refugee camps in Chad between July and December 2023 found that 90 percent had been abused by an armed perpetrator. Fifty percent were abused in their own home and 40 percent were raped by multiple attackers.

Abubakr recalls feeling haunted by the sight of his neighbors in Khartoum leaving their homes—leaving places and things that were an integral part of their identity, not knowing if they would ever return. He never believed that he too would run away from his hometown.

Now all that's left are memories and photos of the home he hopes to reclaim one day.

“I see that one does not inhabit the place as much as the place inhabits them,” said Abubakr. “The images and scenes of my home have never left me. I want to go back to it again.”