Dubai: Sudanese freelance photographer Faiz Abu Bakr documents the crisis in his country that began in April 2023, when violence broke out between rival military factions.
Sudan's armed forces, led by Sudan's de facto president, Abdel Fattah al-Barhan, have since been locked in a battle with the militia's Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalu, commonly known as Hamdi.
Despite the immense danger, Abu Bakr felt compelled to take to the streets with his camera to record the disaster unfolding in his home city of Khartoum and the effect of the generals' bitter rivalry on his beleaguered citizens.
Abu Bakr told Arab News, “Many questions came to my mind about the lives of these residents who were fleeing the scourge of war every day, their homes and possessions burned and they died in tragic ways. “These questions were about how they spent their days under the roar of planes and explosions that forced them from their homes and haunted them with the curse of displacement.”
According to the United Nations, Sudan is now in the grip of the world's largest internal displacement crisis, with millions of people forced to flee their homes, including Abu Bakr, who initially took refuge in Egypt with his family.
After a few months, he returned to Sudan to work for several news agencies until, he said, he was wounded by an RSF gunman. While he recovered, he and his family moved to Kassala, located in eastern Sudan, near the Eritrean border.
Abu Bakr's clients included AFP, Le Monde and The New York Times. Before the conflict, he was the winner of the 2022 World Press Photo Award in the category “Africa, Singles”. Now he is just trying to survive.
“The situation is much worse than before,” said Abu Bakr. “Life is very difficult due to lack of food and livelihood. There is a risk of famine in all parts of the country.
Even while displaced, Abu Bakr has continued to photograph the conflict around him, particularly its impact on civilians forced to flee their homes.
“I try to document their stories, but it's very difficult to photograph for security reasons,” he said. I lost everything during the war, including most of my photography equipment. “My mental state is getting worse.”
that inNo
• 10 million According to the United Nations, internally displaced people in Sudan.
• 25 million More than half of the population needs humanitarian aid.
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 by Doctors Without Borders, which has staff in eight states across Sudan.
The report said the population faced “appalling levels of violence, succumbing to widespread conflict and surviving repeated attacks, abuse and exploitation” by conflicting parties.
“Violence in Sudan shows no sign of abating,” MSF UK chief executive Vicky Hawkins wrote in the report. “In fact, it is escalating at a rate that exceeds our ability to process, document and respond to the daily events that our teams and patients experience in Sudan.”
The report uses medical and operational data collected by MSF from 15 April 2023 to 15 May this year. It points to patterns of violence and abuse by MSF teams and the devastating impact of war on public health.
In the report, an unnamed health worker at Al Nao Hospital in Emdurman, west of Khartoum, described the aftermath of recent shelling in a residential area of the city.
“About 20 people arrived and died soon after. This health worker said: Some of them were dead. “Most of them came with their arms or legs hanging and amputated. Some with only a small piece of skin that holds the two limbs together.
“One of the patients came in with an amputated leg, his caregiver followed him, holding his missing limb.”
According to Doctors Without Borders, El Nao Hospital has treated 6,776 patients for injuries resulting from armed violence from 15 August 2023 to 30 April this year – an average of 26 per day.
“After 15 months of conflict, the warring parties show complete disregard for civilian life,” Kyle McNally, an MSF project coordinator recently deployed to the city of Nyala in southwestern Sudan, told Arab News.
These are the people they claim to represent and fight for. Instead, it is really a war against the Sudanese people in the way they carry out their hostilities. We are witnessing very egregious violations of the protection of civilians and attacks against civilians as well as civilian infrastructure.
Hospitals and medical staff have not been spared. We are witnessing numerous attacks against medical centers. The hospital system and the health care system have been completely destroyed by the war.
Sudan is facing a deepening food crisis, with an estimated 25 million people – including more than 14 million children, 3 million of whom are under the age of five, suffering from acute malnutrition – in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations. They are urgent.
At least 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes to escape violence, according to newly released data from the UN's International Organization for Migration.
“The conflict in Sudan has become one of the largest displacement crises in the world,” Alyona Sinenko, 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 have left their homes. “People have lost their homes and lost access to the necessities of life.”
In particular, the displacement of farmers has led to the collapse of Sudan's agricultural sector and exacerbated food insecurity. “Food production has been severely affected and we are seeing a worsening food crisis,” Sinenko said.
We have hundreds of people who call us desperate because they don't know what happened to their loved ones. “We have more families that have been separated and lost any way to contact each other.”
In the first half of 2024, the ICRC worked in partnership with the Sudanese Red Crescent to provide emergency aid and essential services. However, its efforts have been thwarted by the security situation, administrative challenges and difficulties in accessing communities.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, where allegations of ethnic cleansing and attacks on hospitals have surfaced.
“We saw complete devastation across the city of 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 see a complete lack of basic services anywhere. There has been virtually no international humanitarian response in this part of the country.
You really see people struggling. You have the residents who remain and then you also have the refugee camps around with hundreds of thousands of people. You see so many people who are incredibly desperate and very little help is coming to them right now.
According to Abu Bakr, Sudanese civilians are suffering especially in areas under the control of Rapid Support Forces. This militant group currently controls most of the regions of Khartoum, Al Jazeera, Kordofan and the vast region of West Darfur.
Of particular concern are reports of sexual and gender-based violence emerging from 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 an armed perpetrator. 50% were abused in their own home and 40% were raped by multiple attackers.
Abu Bakr recalls being surprised to see his neighbors in Khartoum abandoning their homes—leaving places and belongings that were part of their identity, not knowing if they would ever return. He never believed that he would also run away from the city where he was born.
Now, all that remains are memories and photos of the home she hopes to one day reclaim.
Abu Bakr said: “I see that man does not dwell in that place as much as the place dwells in it.” “The images and scenes of my house never left my mind. I would like to go back to it again.”
