Leila Molana-Allen: Ravaged.
After a year-and-a-half of war, this is what remains of the Sudanese capital Khartoum’s residential suburbs, once home to millions.
Leila Molana-Allen: After months of fighting, the Sudanese army has managed to recapture this area.
Leila Molana-Allen: Schools have been shut since the war.
Leila Molana-Allen: The hospital sees more than 100 cases like this each month.
Leila Molana-Allen: Zakya’s husband was killed in an attack.
Home to Sudan’s largest grain reserve stockpiling thousands of tons of food, Qadarif’s farmers are terrified that they’re next.
Leila Molana-Allen: RSF forces are closing in on Qadarif in a pincer movement.
Brangham, William:.
Many thanks, Amna.
The Sudanese army and a militia known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, have been engaged in a bloody civil war for almost a year and a half. The nation has been completely destroyed by the fighting, which has also resulted in the greatest human displacement in history.
The USA. Not N. is currently alerting some areas to the threat of famine. Sudan is among the hardest countries for journalists to enter, but “News Hour” managed to get exclusive access to cover events there. The Pulitzer Center is financing that work.
Leila Molana-Allen, a special correspondent, visited key cities in Central and Southeast Sudan for her second report in a series, where she spoke with those impacted by the violence.
Leila Molana-Allen:.
Devastated. This is what’s left of the once-million-person residential suburbs of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, following a year and a half of conflict.
The streets littered with bullets tell the tale of close-quarters fighting, with craters left by missiles tearing through walls and rooftops every few yards, a century-old mosque left scarred by gunfire, and the largest bank in the area destroyed. Hospitals that provided life were destroyed.
So this was being used as a base by the RSF?
Leila Allen Molana:.
The Sudanese army has retaken this territory following months of fighting. However, danger is close by: the Rapid Support Forces are still shelling, shooting, and raiding Khartoum City, which is located just across the Nile.
Every street is affected by the violence. The eerie silence here is filled with the ache of loss. People have been burying their family members who were killed in the fighting here in a makeshift cemetery on the grounds of an abandoned football field where children used to play, cut off from the main cemetery by the continuously shifting front lines.
One family never left, but a few former residents meander through formerly familiar alleyways, terrified. Maryam Adam has 75 years of age. Their neighbors ran away in fear last spring as the RSF swept through town. However, the Adams family refused to leave when militiamen showed up at their door.
Maryam Adam, the Omdurman resident (via interpreter):.
Everything that took place here has been witnessed by us. Not only were we able to hear all of the sounds, but we also saw weapons lights shooting across the sky. When the house was hit by a shell, the walls and glass were broken. That was the first shell to strike our house, causing minor injuries to me here and there.
Leila Allen Molana:.
Ever since the war, schools have been closed. Abak, 5, just wants to see her teachers and friends. That’s all. Who is still alive is unknown to her.
Five-year-old Abak Adam (through interpreter): I enjoy learning. I was learning that the letters A, B, and C stand for apple, boy, and chicken, respectively. Although the kindergarten closed and the teacher left, I still have friends there.
Tijani Ibrahim, Omdurman Local (via translator):.
Women, children, and senior citizens without weapons. They have no political affiliation and have nothing to do with the RSF or the SAF. Every house is now a cemetery. For democracy, why is all of this happening?
They proclaim human rights and democracy abroad. They act vilely, but they speak beautifully. And now, as they declare an end to all warfare, we in Sudan are perishing from the weapons they supply.
Leila Molana-Allen:.
They’re not safe even here. In as many months, the hospital has already been struck five times. Hospital targeting during hostilities is illegal. Throughout the course of the conflict, small-arms fire and shelling have repeatedly struck Omdurman’s hospitals. The majority of them no longer work.
Every time there is a strike, they fix the damage and continue operations here at Al Nao Hospital, the only surgical hospital still in operation.
In addition, Al Nao was struck once more four days after the departure of “News Hour.”. The largest private hospital in Omdurman is already in ruins. After being bombarded last month, the Al Buluk Children’s Hospital has just recently been able to reopen. Under continual threat of assault, overworked medical professionals attempt to save the lives of young people here.
Leila Molana-Allen:.
Each month, the hospital sees over 100 cases similar to this one. With limited access to food and water, families such as Mugahed’s are confined behind shifting front lines. Moms who are malnourished are unable to give their infants the necessary breast milk. The only way to save them is to take a risk on the journey to bring them here.
They don’t always succeed, though. The nine-month-old Ukrainian girl, who got her name from a similar brutal battle for survival, has received so little nourishment in her early life that her organs are malfunctioning.
Leila Allen Molana:.
An attack claimed the life of Zakya’s husband. With no place to live and no means of support, Zakya will have to raise her and her three other children by herself if Ukrain survives.
The amount of need in the nation is astounding. Communities in Sudan are coming together to help despite the lack of government or foreign assistance. Rather than using wheat for bread, these displaced women in Omdurman get together every evening to bake sorghum bread. The following morning, long lines formed to pick up rations of bread, rice, lentils, and broad beans, all funded by donations from the local community and the Sudanese diaspora.
For many of these families, today’s meal is their only one. Millions of people will be starving to death by autumn if nothing is done. The picturesque pastoral landscapes and undulating green hills of Qadarif defy the mounting danger. Sudan’s breadbasket is this region. Nonetheless, the adjacent agrarian states have already been taken over by the RSF.
Sickened that they will be next? Qadarif is home to Sudan’s largest grain reserve, which is storing thousands of tons of food.
Leila Allen Molana:.
Qadarif is being pincer-attacked by RSF forces. The country’s already limited food supply would be severely harmed by an RSF victory in this battle.
International leaders gather this week vowing to find answers as hundreds of thousands of the sick, wounded, desperate mothers and their exhausted children look in vain for a place to wait out this war and enough food to survive it. Few people here think assistance is on the way.
I’m Leila Molana-Allen in Qadarif, Sudan, for PBS’s “News Hour.”.
