Plus: how global demand for palm oil is fuelling corruption in Honduras
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Reporter's note
In Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city on the west bank of the Nile in Sudan, the streets are empty. In the working-class area where I’ve lived all my life, the buzz of people and of children playing has been replaced by eerie silence. I see people who are carrying on their shoulders the bodies of their loved ones, killed by shells, looking for spaces within the neighbourhoods to bury them because it’s too dangerous to go to the cemeteries.

Dozens of civilians, including friends and acquaintances, have been killed since fighting broke out between the army and the Rapid Support Forces in April. People have fled the area, their houses looted by both groups, who steal everything from cars to spoons.

Everyone here looks thinner and paler, due to shortages of food and drink. There is no aid coming in. In some parts of Khartoum North there are reports of people suffering from night blindness because of poor diets.

I’ve been reporting on the war since it began, but I’m worried that Sudan is fading from view as the world’s attention focuses on Gaza. Before that we were competing with Ukraine.

This negligence is being felt hardest by people in Darfur. As I reported with Kaamil Ahmed last week, genocide is taking place in West Darfur against the Masalit community and some other non-Arab groups. There, too, the streets are emptying as those who can, flee. All the people I met on reporting trips to towns and villages in West Darfur last year are either dead or have become refugees in Chad.

I feel sad and angry that the world is looking away. The international community must intervene to stop this nonsense war by putting pressure on the two sides and their regional enablers. Without pressure, this will become a prolonged war and I fear what could happen in Darfur.

Gaza and Ukraine need support, but the world must find room to help Sudan too.
Zeinab Mohammed Salih, reporter in Khartoum
Spotlight
Sudan’s cycle of violence  
‘There is a genocide going on in West Darfur’
‘There is a genocide going on in West Darfur’
 

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