Return from Sudan

Hi everyone

As many of you know I spent August in Sudan. Unfortunately this blog was a casualty of my time there – with the GOS having blocked this site inside  Sudan I couldn’t access even the back-end of it to post updates. In many ways it was a blessing in disguise, both because I was so busy with interviews, and because I would have been too paranoid on the security front to write freely anyway.

On the outskirts of Kalma camp, South Darfur

I have so much to share, I’m at a bit of a loss where to start. . .

In Khartoum I did over 30 interviews, almost all of multi-hour length with people including (leader of the Janjaweed), Minni Minawi ( the one rebel who signed the DPA), Lam Akol (Sudan’s foreign minister for most of the period I am
writing on), Hassan al Turabi (hand behind the Bashir coup in 1989), Dr Ghazi (now head of the Darfur file),Rodolphe Adada (outgoing Head on UN-AU in Darfur)  – in addition to many others in government and civil society. I also caught up briefly with Scott Gration before he headed to Juba. I attended the second court appearance of Lubna Hussein – the journalist who faces flogging for the “crime” of wearing trousers, and got sprayed with tear gas following a football match.

After 16 days of being told by External Information, “come back tomorrow”, and right at the point I had decided I needed to head back to Nairobi because didn’t have enough money left to stay in Khartoum any longer, I was given a travel permit to go to Darfur the next day.

Cookers of recycled USAID tins: Sudanese ingenuity at El Fasher market

In El Fasher and then in Nyala I did interviews with all aspects of UNAMID, the few aid workers who were not too scared to speak, and of course with the people I care about most – the IDPs themselves. I also experienced the all-encompassing warmth of close-knit Darfur family life, staying at the home of a Darfuri friend. From 7 months to 70 years, we had grandmother, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters, all living together. We ate dinner off one plate together each evening and slept under the bright stars of the Darfur sky each night. I’m not sure I have ever felt so much love concentrated in one place.

At 4am on Saturday August 22, I was woken by the street band of drummers, serving as an alarm to wake everyone up for sahur (meal before sun rises and fasting starts), on the first day of Ramadan. Like so many I met, I hoped that the holy month of Ramadan would bring peace in Darfur.

In the coming week, I’m likely to be posting a mish-mash of things – from photos, to ‘travelogues’ that I wrote up while practicing the fine Sudanese art of waiting (waiting, waiting), and summaries of the key issues raised in my interviews. As always, time in Sudan puts me through emotions of despair and hope, rage and joy, like no other place on earth seems to be capable of.

Thanks for your continuing readership,

Bec