Sudan: For the few who couldn’t flee this neighbourhood in Khartoum North life will never be the same

Published

7 months ago

October 3, 2024

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It has only been a week since the army reclaimed pockets of Khartoum North – the once bustling north-eastern wing of Sudan’s tri-city capital, locally known as Khartoum Bahri.

The hum of warplanes and crack of gunfire still punctuate life here. But the gunfire is now outgoing, and the warplanes are searching for enemy targets that have been pushed further back.

A year-and-a-half long siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is now over for some. But the scars still mark the streets, the homes and the few families still in them.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled Khartoum Bahri to safer states within Sudan, neighbouring countries and beyond.

There was a haunting emptiness when we arrived in Halfaya – an old tight-knit neighbourhood where families live for generations, expanding to only move across the narrow dirt roads.

Today, overgrown vines reach into the shattered windows of cars abandoned in the yards of their owners.

Inside, the homes are overturned, looted and destroyed by bullets and missiles.

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All that was left behind – photo albums, pencil cases, clothes and books – mean everything to a select few. Many left hoping it would only be a short while before they could return.

But not everyone could leave.

“We don’t have a single penny to leave with. We didn’t have anything and never expected this,” Faiza Ishaq tells us in front of her home.

“I don’t have any family here – all my people left. I’m just with my two children and husband.”

Other than a handful of remaining neighbours, we are the first civilians Faiza has seen in close to 18 months of war.

She collapsed into sobs on my shoulder soon after we happily hugged each other hello. In a moment, her new sense of relief was overshadowed by months of deep horror and grief.

“Since they came a year and a half ago, I developed a tremor in my whole body. My hands shake so much I can’t eat without spilling food,” says Faiza, visibly trembling.

“We have been living in such terror – they can jump the wall at 2am. They hurl insults at us and threaten to take my 12-year-old daughter.”

The crisis in Sudan – explained

Tensions had been building for months before fighting between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in the capital Khartoum on 15 April last year.

Clashes have continued into this year between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in a fight for political power that has killed thousands of people.

They had been in a fragile partnership after staging a coup in October 2021, which derailed a transition from the rule of Islamist autocrat Omar al Bashir. He was ousted in 2019.

The ongoing conflict has unleashed waves of ethnic violence, created the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, and pushed at least one area in Darfur into famine.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Egypt, Chad, and South Sudan, with smaller numbers crossing into Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.

The main players in the power struggle include General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, head of the army and leader of Sudan’s ruling council since 2019 – and his former deputy on the council, RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF says it is fighting to rid Sudan of remnants of Bashir’s regime. The army says it is trying to protect the state against “criminal” rebels. Both sides in the conflict have used gold, Sudan’s most valuable and widely smuggled resource, to support their war effort.

Witnesses say the RSF and its allies have committed extensive abuses, including ethnically targeted killings, sexual violence and looting. Residents have accused the army of killing civilians in indiscriminate shelling and air strikes. Both sides have largely denied the accusations against them.

More than 17 months of war has inflicted massive damage on infrastructure, forced more than 10 million people from their homes and left half the population facing crisis levels of hunger.

She says their neighbours were killed by the RSF while fighting to protect their two sisters from rape. Her utmost fear was that her young daughter would be next in line.

“They would say to me ‘give me your daughter to marry or we’ll take her’. When they would come to the house, I locked her in the bathroom.”

The little food and support they could find under siege came from around the corner. Her neighbour Sumaya has turned her house into a community kitchen.

With the markets emptied, the chicken coup in the corner of her yard and grains bought with donations raised from Sudanese people abroad were used to feed as many remaining families as possible in the harshest of conditions.

“The fear and trauma have made us sick. We were never like this – we are finished,” says Sumaya.

“We have all lost weight and feel weak because they could knock the door at any moment. If someone knocked on the door without saying my name I felt gripped by fear.”

As we stood there and spoke in the heat of the day, one of the community volunteers, Firas, had to go and lie down.

He has malaria for the fourth time since the war started. Even in the wake of this military gain, movement and medical treatment in the capital is severely limited.

“I faint two to three times in a month from a lack of nutrition,” says Firas.

He has survived army airstrikes, RSF harassment and the dangerous work on electrical cables he has had to risk to keep the power on in the neighbourhood.

“It really was kill or be killed. We told our families that if we die, just forgive us.”

World

Drone attacks are intensifying in Sudan – hitting schools and camps homing the displaced

Published

13 hours ago

May 3, 2025

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Drone attacks are intensifying in Sudan - hitting schools and camps homing the displaced

The smell of explosives is still in the air when we arrive.

Hours before, a displacement camp in Atbara housing families who fled the war in Sudan’s capital Khartoum was hit by two drone strikes in a four-pronged attack.

The first bomb on 25 April burned donated tents and killed the children in them.

The second hit a school serving as a shelter for the spillover of homeless families.

Chunks of cement and plaster had been blasted off the walls of the classrooms where they slept when the second explosive was dropped.

Blood marked the entrance of the temporary home closest to the crater.

Inside, shattered glass and broken window frames speak to the force of the explosion. We were told by their neighbours that four people in the family were instantly killed.

“People were torn apart. This is inhumane,” says their neighbour Mahialdeen, whose brother and sister were injured. “We are praying that God lifts this catastrophe. We left Khartoum because of the fighting and found it here.”

Wiping a tear, he says: “It is chasing us.”

The sanctuary city held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) about 200 miles northeast of Khartoum has been hit by six drone attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since the start of the year.

These latest strikes are the most deadly.

The drones – known for targeting civilian infrastructure – hit the displacement camp twice, the nearby power station supplying the city with electricity and an empty field with four bombs in the dark, early hours of the morning. First responders have told Sky News that 12 people were killed, including at least two children.

RSF increasingly using drones to carry out attacks

Data from the conflict-monitoring organisation ACLED shows the RSF has carried out increasing numbers of drone attacks across the country.

The most targeted states have been Khartoum and North Darfur, where fighting on the ground has been fierce, as well as Atbara’s River Nile State.

The data suggests that the increase in strikes has been driven by a change in tactics following the SAF’s recapture of Khartoum in late March, with the number of strikes carried out by the RSF spiking shortly after their withdrawal from the capital.

Satellite imagery shows the RSF’s airpower has allowed it to continue to attack targets in and around Khartoum.

Nearby Wadi Seidna Airbase was targeted after the attack on Atbara, with damage visible across a large area south of its airfield.

We were given access to the remains of latest suicide drones launched at Khartoum and could not find discernible signs of commercial origin.

Drone experts told Sky News that they are self-built devices made from generic parts with no identifiable manufacturers for the components.

Drones sighted in South Darfur are consistent with Chinese models

High-resolution satellite images confirm the presence of drones at the RSF-held Nyala Airport.

While the total number of drones kept at this location is unknown, imagery from Planet Labs shows six on 24 April.

This is the highest number of drones observed at the airport, suggesting an increase in the RSF’s available airpower.

The location and number of drones visible in satellite imagery at Nyala Airport has varied over time, suggesting they are in active use.

While it is not possible to determine the exact model of drones sighted at Nyala Airport, a report published by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Lab has previously found them to be consistent with the Chinese-produced FH-95.

Analysis carried out by Sky News confirms these findings, with the measurements and visible features matching those of the CH-95 and FH-95. Both designs are produced in China.

The United Arab Emirates is widely accused of supplying Chinese drones to the RSF through South Sudan and Uganda, as well as weapons through Chad. The UAE vehemently denies these claims.

Evidence of new airfields

Satellite imagery viewed by Sky News suggests the RSF has worked to increase its air capabilities outside of South Darfur.

In late 2024, five new airstrips appeared in West Kordofan between the contested cities of North Darfur capital Al Fashir and Khartoum.

While the purpose of these airstrips is unknown, it is clear they carry some level of military significance, having been targeted by air in April.

In high-resolution images, no aircraft can be seen. Damage is visible next to a structure that appears to be an aircraft hangar.

The rapid escalation in drone strikes is being brutally suffered on the ground.

In Atbara’s Police Hospital, we find a ward full of the injured survivors.

One of them, a three-year-old girl called Manasiq, is staring up at the ceiling in wide-eyed shock with her head wrapped in a bandage and her feet covered in dried blood.

Her aunt tells us the explosion flung her small body across the classroom shelter but she miraculously survived.

She has shrapnel in her head and clings onto her aunt as her mother is treated for her own injuries in a ward on the first floor.

In a dark room deeper in the ward, a mother sits on the edge of a hospital bed holding her young injured daughter. Her son, only slightly older, is on a smaller adjustable bed further away.

Fadwa looks forlorn and helpless. Her children were spending the night with relatives in the temporary tents when the first strike hit and killed her eight-year-old son.

His surviving sister and brother have been asking after him, but Fadwa can’t bring herself to break the news.

“What can I say? This is our fate. We fled the war in Khartoum but can’t escape the violence,” Fadwa says, staring off in the distance.

“We are condemned to this fate.”

World

Ship carrying aid for Gaza bombed by drones, as NGO points finger at Israel

Published

1 day ago

May 2, 2025

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Ship carrying aid for Gaza bombed by drones, as NGO points finger at Israel

A ship carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza has been bombed by drones while it was in international waters.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the NGO responsible for the ship, has pointed the finger at Israel.

Video shows fire raging onboard the vessel, which put out an SOS distress call after it was attacked off the coast of Malta.

It comes as the case against Israel at the International Court of Justice continued this week.

Gaza remains under blockade, with Israel having now refused to allow international aid into the devastated enclave for almost two months despite global outcry.

Following the drone attack, the Maltese government confirmed that after several hours all crew were safe and the fire was under control.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said: “Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade (of Gaza) and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”

It asserted that the drone attack “appears to have specifically targeted the ship’s generator” and had left the vessel at risk of sinking.

Describing the attack, it said: “Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull.

“The last communication in the early morning of the 2nd of May, indicated the drones are still circling the ship.”

It released video footage shot in the dark that showed lights in the sky in front of the ship and the sound of explosions. The footage also showed the vessel on fire.

The Israeli foreign ministry has not commented on what happened.

Yesterday, UN aid coordinator Tom Fletcher called on Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza, which has been in force for almost two months.

“Yes, the hostages must be released, now. They should never have been taken from their families,” he said.

“But international law is unequivocal: As the occupying power, Israel must allow humanitarian support in.”

Aid should never be a “bargaining chip”, he added.

‘Children going to bed starving’

Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA said: “The siege on Gaza is the silent killer of children, of older people.

“Families – whole families, seven or eight people – are resorting to sharing one can of beans or peas. Imagine not having anything to feed your children. Children in Gaza are going to bed starving.”

World

Germany’s far-right AfD party officially classified as ‘extremist’ organisation

Published

1 day ago

May 2, 2025

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Germany's far-right AfD party officially classified as 'extremist' organisation

Germany’s spy agency has officially classified the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an “extremist” organisation.

The party has been growing in popularity and came second in February’s general election.

The country’s domestic intelligence agency said on Friday that it was an extremist entity which threatens democracy.

Its 1,000-page internal report claimed views around ethnicity held by the AfD aim to exclude certain groups from equal participation in society.

“The party’s prevailing understanding of the people based on ethnicity and descent is incompatible with the free democratic basic order,” the agency said in a statement.

“Specifically, the AfD considers, for example, German citizens with a migration background from predominantly Muslim countries not equal members of the ethnically defined German people.”

AfD’s co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla described the decision as a “serious blow to German democracy”.

In a joint statement on Friday, they said: “The AfD is now being publicly discredited and criminalised as an opposition party shortly before the change of government.

“The associated, targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process is therefore clearly politically motivated. The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against this defamation that jeopardises democracy.”

The party leaders have consistently denied the party is either far right or extremist.

Local branches of the party in the east German states of Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt had already been classified as extremist by regional spy chiefs.

The entire party was also previously designated “suspected” far-right extremist.

However, the announcement allows intelligence agencies to increase surveillance on the group.

It may also embolden opponents to try to get the party banned.

The decision was welcomed by the country’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, who said in a statement that the new assessment was “clear and unequivocal”, adding that the party “discriminates against entire segments of the population and treats citizens with a migration background as second-class Germans”.

She underlined that “there has been no political influence on the findings” but said the new classification was likely to be subject to judicial review.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that although the intelligence agency has provided a “very detailed justification” for the decision, “ban proceedings must not be rushed”.

Anton Baron, a regional politician in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, described the decision as “politically questionable”.

While the ruling is a blow for the party, it is unlikely to influence hardcore supporters, many of whom live in states where the party was already designated extremist at a local level.