DUBAI: Sudanese freelance photographer Faiz Abubakar is documenting the crisis in his homeland that began in April 2023 when violence erupted between rival military factions.
Sudan's armed forces, led by Sudan's de facto president Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, have been facing off against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, ever since.
Despite the enormous dangers, Abubakr felt compelled to take to the streets with his camera to document the devastation unfolding in his hometown of Khartoum and the effects of the fierce competition between the generals and the suffering people.
“Many questions arise in my mind about the lives of these residents who are fleeing the war every day, their homes and belongings burned down and their lives tragically lost,” Abu Bakr told Arab News. “These questions concern how they live each day under the din of aircraft and bombings, forcing them to leave their homes and be haunted by the curse of migration.”
Sudan is currently facing the world's largest internal migration crisis, with millions of people forced to flee their homes, including Abu Bakr, who initially sought help from his family in Egypt, according to a UN report.
After a few months, he returned to Sudan to work for various news agencies until he was wounded by RSF gunmen, he said. While he was recovering, he and his family moved to Kassala, in eastern Sudan near the Eritrean border.
Abubakar's clients include AFP, Le Monde and The New York Times. Before the conflict, he was the recipient of the 2022 World Press Photo Award in the category of “Africa Singles”. But now he's just trying to survive.
“The situation is getting worse,” Abubakar said. “Life is very difficult due to lack of food and livelihoods. There is a threat of famine in all parts of the country.”
Despite his remote location, Abu Bakr continues to photograph the conflict around him, particularly the impact it has on civilians forced from their homes.
“I tried to record their stories, but taking pictures was very difficult for security reasons,” he said. “I lost everything during the war, including most of my photography equipment. My mental state kept getting worse.”
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– 10 million A large number of people have been displaced within Sudan, according to the United Nations.
– 25 million More than half the population needs humanitarian assistance.
Abu Bakr is not alone. The conflict has taken a devastating toll on the health and well-being of Sudanese civilians, according to a new report from Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has staff working in eight states across Sudan.
The population has suffered “horrific levels of violence, been swept up in widespread armed conflict and survived repeated attacks, abuses and exploitation” by the warring parties, the report said.
“The violence in Sudan shows no signs of slowing down,” Vicky Hawkins, MSF UK’s executive director, wrote in the report. “In fact, the violence is escalating at a rate that is far beyond our ability to process, record and respond to the daily events our teams and patients are experiencing in Sudan.”
The report draws on medical and operational data collected by MSF from 15 April 2023 to 15 May this year, documenting patterns of violence and abuses observed by MSF teams and the dire impact of the conflict on people’s health.
In the report, an unnamed health worker from Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, west of Khartoum, described the incident following recent shelling in residential areas of the city.
“About 20 people arrived and died immediately afterwards,” a health official said. “Some arrived dead. Most arrived with arms or legs hanging down and severed. Some had only a small amount of skin holding their limbs together.”
“A patient arrived with an amputated leg and was accompanied by a caregiver holding the missing leg in his hand.”
According to MSF, Al Nao Hospital has treated 6,776 patients injured by armed violence between August 15, 2023 and April 30 this year, an average of 26 patients per day.
“After 15 months of conflict, the warring parties have shown a complete disregard for civilian life,” Kyle McNally, MSF’s project coordinator based in Nyala, southwest Sudan, told Arab News.
“These are the people they claim to represent and fight for, but in reality this is a war against the Sudanese people in the way they are fighting. We are seeing serious violations of civilian protection and attacks on civilians, including civilian infrastructure.
“Hospitals and medical personnel have not been spared. We have seen numerous attacks on health facilities. The hospital and healthcare systems have been completely destroyed by the fighting.”
According to the United Nations, Sudan is facing a worsening food crisis, with an estimated 25 million people, including more than 14 million children and 3 million children under the age of five, severely malnourished and in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
At least 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes to escape violence, according to new figures released by the United Nations' International Organization for Migration.
“The conflict in Sudan has become one of the largest migration crises in the world,” Alyona Synenko, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Africa region, told Arab News from Nairobi.
“We are talking about a quarter of the country’s population displaced from their homes. People are losing their homes and access to the necessities of survival.”
The exodus of farmers in particular has crippled Sudan's agricultural sector, exacerbating food shortages. “Food production has been severely impacted and we are seeing a worsening food crisis,” Sinenko said.
“Hundreds of people have called us in despair because they don’t know what happened to their loved ones. We have families that are separated and can no longer communicate with each other.”
During the first half of 2024, the ICRC worked with the Sudanese Red Cross Society to provide emergency assistance and essential services. However, the ICRC's efforts were hampered by the security situation, administrative challenges and difficulties in reaching communities.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, where allegations of ethnic cleansing and attacks on hospitals have emerged.
“We are seeing severe devastation across Nyala, which used to be Sudan’s second most populous city,” said MSF’s McNally.
“The entire northern half of the city is almost completely destroyed. You can see there are no basic services, there is almost no international humanitarian response in this part of the country.
“You see a lot of people struggling, both the residents who are still there and there are also IDP camps in the area with hundreds of thousands of people. You see a lot of people who are incredibly desperate and have very little to no help.”
Sudanese civilians have suffered particularly hard in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, Abubakr said. The paramilitary group currently controls most of Khartoum, Al-Jazira, Kordofan and large areas of western Darfur.
Of particular concern are reports of sexual and gender-based violence occurring across the country, particularly from Darfur.
An MSF survey of 135 survivors of sexual violence treated in refugee camps in Chad by MSF teams between July and December 2023 found that 90 percent had been abused by armed perpetrators, 50 percent had been abused in their own homes, and 40 percent had been raped by multiple perpetrators.
Abu Bakr recounted his horror at seeing his neighbours in Khartoum abandon their homes, leaving behind the places and possessions that were part of their identity, not knowing if they would ever return. He never believed that he would have to flee his hometown either.
Now all that remains are memories and photographs of the home he hopes to return to someday.
“I found that people don’t live in a place as much as the place does,” Abu Bakr said. “The images and scenes from my house never leave my mind. I want to go back there again.”
