![]() ![]() Since a revolution in 2019 had toppled the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for 30 years, Khartoum had become accustomed to episodes of civil unrest followed by security crackdowns. That belief was shaken as videos of dead bodies decomposing in cars were posted on social media, and family members sent photos of their walls pockmarked with bullet holes. Even as it became clear that things were deteriorating quickly, I still held on to the irrational belief that it would all “die down”. People clustered indoors, as far from the windows as possible. So sudden and precipitous was the descent into armed conflict that even diplomats and foreign NGO staff, usually protected by early intelligence and evacuation, were caught along with the rest of the city’s residents, sheltering inside their homes. It was the last days of Ramadan, and the streets, which had only hours before been full of people preparing for Eid festivities, were now strewn with dead bodies.īy the Monday, central Khartoum was a battleground. ![]() Tanks rolled through the city, crushing cars under their tracks. Military aircraft screeched across the skies of the capital, clumsily bombing militia targets positioned in civilian areas and levelling residential neighbourhoods. Planes preparing for takeoff were bombed on the runway. People trying to leave from Khartoum airport crouched in terror, sheltering from loud explosions. I was in London, and the news came to me in a horror reel of videos posted on social media and sent on WhatsApp. In the 48 hours after the first reports of trouble, life in Khartoum shattered. I had been in Khartoum only a few weeks earlier, and even though the city felt tense, life was perfectly normal. Whatever it was, I was convinced there was no cause for alarm. A minority suspected it was the start of a clash between two military factions that had been jostling for power for months, but no one could foresee the scale of what was about to happen. Those nearer central Khartoum said that they heard the sound of artillery, but others said there was in fact no gunfire, only loud explosions, and speculated that perhaps they were the result of military training exercises. People were hearing that there had been skirmishes near the airport, and reported seeing pickup trucks ferrying troops at speed across the city. When the sound of gunfire began to ring around parts of Khartoum early one Saturday in April, calls from family and friends in the city sounded relatively little alarm. We thought it would last a day, two at most. ![]()
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