--:-- Aisha Roscoe: Hey, it's Aisha Roscoe. Real quick before the show. It's been a wild and exhausting election season. And in the home stretch, we want you to know about three ways to make sure you don't miss a development throughout the day.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: You already know about Up First. Here in this feed during the week, Up First is recorded before dawn and out by 7 a.m. Eastern Time each weekday. It's the only morning podcast anywhere that captures the news overnight. Up First, 7 a.m.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: Second, later in the day, you can find a new episode of the NPR Politics Podcast with context and analysis on the big stories whenever they happen. So you get an alert, big breaking news, you don't know what to think. Look for the NPR Politics Podcast a few hours later.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: And finally, Consider This is the podcast where NPR covers one big story in depth every weekday evening. They will be all over this election and its aftermath too. So you've got Up First in the Morning, Consider This in the Evening, and the NPR Politics Podcast anytime big stuff happens. and around-the-clock election news survival kit from NPR Podcasts.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: Okay, thanks for listening. Here's the show.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: This is a Sunday story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. I'm Andrew Mambo, a producer on the show, filling in this week for Ayesha Roscoe.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Not long ago, NPR's West Africa correspondent, Emmanuel Akinwotu, went to cover the brutal war playing out in the country of Sudan. As many as 150,000 people have been killed. And now, with millions having fled their homes, it's the world's worst displacement crisis. Emmanuel is here today to talk about what he saw and how the country got to this point.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: Hey, Andrew. Hey.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: So, Emmanuel, to start, the country's main airport is in Khartoum, which is at the center of the fighting. So you had to get around that by flying into another city. What was it like when you landed?
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: So I flew into Port Sudan, which used to be the sleepy port city along the Red Sea. But almost overnight, it's become this impromptu capital with new hotels, new high-end restaurants springing up all across the city. But there are also several schools and abandoned sites that have become displacement camps, filling up with thousands of people.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: From Port Sudan, we hired a driver to get us to Khartoum, which was about a 13-hour drive by road. And throughout the journey, I was just bracing myself for the difficult things we were likely to see there. But what really struck me, Andrew, was just how beautiful the country is.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: The road snakes through the Red Sea mountains. It passes through vast countryside, through miles and miles of wheat and rice. Then we saw the incredible Meroe pyramids. Most people associate pyramids with Egypt, but there are actually more pyramids in Sudan, built more than 2,200 years ago.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And we couldn't just pass by. Wow. We ended up going up close just to see these inscriptions on the walls, images of ancient Nubian queens and figures. Wow, that sounds so beautiful.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: It was, it was incredible. But of course, alongside all of this beauty, we began to see the signs of the war emerge, especially as we got closer to Khartoum. Some of the towns we stopped in were filling up with thousands of displaced people.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Finally, we arrived on the outskirts of Khartoum, and then we could really see just how destructive and horrific this war has been.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Okay, help me understand, how did it get to this point?
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: So to really understand this war, we have to go back to a moment of immense hope five years ago. The brutal dictator Omar al-Bashir, he'd just been ousted after almost 30 years in power. And it was a shock.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: It started with people protesting against the state of the economy. And then unexpectedly, these protests morphed into a revolution. Social media was full of footage of these incredible scenes of thousands of people pouring out onto the streets, chanting in anger, but also in hope.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: And within a year of the protests, there was a new civilian-led government and this promise of the first free elections in decades
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Emmanuel, this wasn't your first time in Sudan. You were back there in 2020 in the early days of the new peace. So what was it like?
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: I remember going to these beautiful outdoor restaurants on the bank of the River Nile and talking and meeting people who were just saying how much had already changed, even in a short space of time. There was a larger creative scene flourishing. There was gradually more freedom of expression and optimism that, despite the very real challenges people were facing, the country felt like it was turning a page.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: But at the same time, it was also on a knife's edge. There was a lot of fear because the civilian-led government was still very fragile.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: That kind of tension sounds familiar. You know, we've seen this play out so often where popular uprisings don't succeed, right? I'm thinking about, you know, the Arab Spring and Egypt, when there was a time of great hope, but, you know, the revolution was exploited.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Exactly. And this is more or less what happened in Sudan. The civilian-led government lasted less than two years. Then there was a coup, led this time by the Sudanese army and a powerful paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, better known as the RSA.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Just within the past few hours, the head of the armed forces dissolved the joint military civilian government. In October 2021, they arrested the prime minister and his cabinet and made themselves head of a new transition government. And it was this dramatic turnaround that was widely seen as a major betrayal of the revolution.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: After that, these two groups, the RSF and the army, they started struggling for control and for power. And within a few years, they were at war. And things got ugly really, really quick, right?
--:-- Andrew Mambo: It's been devastating. It's now the world's worst displacement crisis, with more than 12 million people internally displaced or made refugees. That's more than a fifth of the country, and half of the country are facing starvation. The death tolls vary, but by some estimates, as many as 150,000 people have been killed, which is just an absurd thing to say, really. That's just a staggering number.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: I mean, by some estimates, it's up there with the worst conflicts we've seen around the world recently. But we hardly hear about Sudan.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Yeah, it's a huge figure. And when you compare the intention the media plays to these different conflicts it becomes clear that life isn valued the same way. It feels like one person dying is a tragedy if it happens in the West but in places like in Africa or the Middle East it seems to take maybe 100 or more people dying just to provoke the same level of attention or outrage.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: Sudan is a particular example of that. They've had multiple wars. Over 2 million people died in the last civil war, which raged for over 20 years. and the relative amnesia to those, you know, insanely high casualties has continued to now.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: You know, yeah, I do think that when people hear this, they might have a vision of Sudan as a place, you know, always at war and this kind of destruction is normal. But Emmanuel, the way this conflict is playing out is totally different than anything the country's experienced before.
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: Absolutely. Even after 18 months, so many people in Sudan are still in shock. Through all of Sudan's past and brutal wars, the people in the capital, in Khartoum, They lived in a bubble. They lived normal lives, safe from the destruction and conflict that was raging around the country. It's not that they were unaware, they just weren't as directly impacted because the fighting was happening out in the provinces or in faraway regions.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: It never came to the capital city, but this time the fighting erupted right in their homes, in their streets, in their neighbourhoods, and it spread from there throughout the country.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: You're listening to The Sunday Story. Stay with us.
--:-- [Announcement from BetterHelp]
--:-- Andrew Mambo: This message comes from BetterHelp. It's only human to ask others for advice, like turning to your barista, hairdresser, or a taxi driver for life advice. But when you're looking for help about relationships, anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, they may not have all the right answers. Instead, get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- [Announcement from Adobe]
--:-- Andrew Mambo: This message comes from NPR sponsor Adobe. Introducing the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio, now with AI-powered PDF spaces. Need to turn 100 pages of market research into five insights with a click? Templates for a sales proposal that'll close that deal? Or an AI specialist to tailor the tone of your market report? You can do all that with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat.
--:-- [Announcement from AARP]
--:-- Andrew Mambo: This message comes from NPR sponsor AARP. Where do you see your career in 12 years? What are you doing now to help you get there? The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready. That's why AARP has management, finance, and small business reskilling courses, all to help your income live as long as you do. Because the steps you choose to take today will help you love what you do in the future. Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: This is a Sunday story. I'm talking with NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu about his recent trip to Sudan, a country in the midst of a deadly civil war. So, Emmanuel, after your long drive, you finally arrive in Khartoum State, where the capital Khartoum is and where the conflict really began. What did you find?
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: Well, Khartoum is mostly controlled by the RSF. That's the paramilitary group the army is at war with. And we were with an army escort, so we couldn't even go there. But we were able to go to Omdurman, which is a kind of sister city just across the river now.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Omdurman is this busy, lively desert city where cars and donkeys share these sandy roads. It's the cultural capital of the country. with museums, monuments, outdoor cafes. We could see Khartoum from Omdurman, but we couldn't actually go there or cross the bridge. We couldn't even go near the riverbank for more than a minute because it's in range of snipers on the other side.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: That sounds really intense. So let me get this clear. The RSF control most of Khartoum and the army controls Omdurman. But in general, which side do the people blame for starting the war?
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: It's complicated because both sides really are responsible. Together, the army and the RSF launched the coup that took down the civilian-led government, and both of these groups have been accused of committing horrific atrocities. But the atrocities committed by the RSF are generally far worse.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: The soldiers have been accused of looting, raping, and ethnic cleansing. The majority of Sudanese people just want the war to end, But if they had to pick a side, they'd likely prefer the army to come out on top. For most people, the army has more legitimacy and trust in Sudan.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And when the army take back areas from RSF control, like when they took back Omdurman, the scenes are incredibly emotional. You see people weeping, hugging and kissing soldiers. They see them as their salvation, even if the army is saving them from the very problem they helped create.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: In Omdaman, where we were, the army was in control and preparing to make a major advance into Khartoum, and they've made some strides. Meanwhile, the RSF were launching artillery shells into the city constantly, at military targets, but also indiscriminately.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: It must be brutal for the people living there. It is. We were there reporting and trying to figure out just how to show what people in Omdaman are facing day to day and how brutal the war has been. And I met one family who had this harrowing escape from RSF-controlled Khartoum.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: They invited me into the house where they'd fled for safety in Omdaman. Good morning. Good morning, sir. How are you doing?
--:-- Usama: Well, I'm fine. Nice to see you.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: The family was staying in this sprawling yellow three-story clay house with a balcony overlooking Omdaman and a courtyard with a lemon tree. There was the father, Usama, who'd been a professor before the war. his wife, his daughter, and their 21-year-old son, Auzubeh, a student at university.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: How are you doing? How are you doing? Emmanuel.
--:-- Auzubeh: They served me, my producer and photographer tea and dates. Then Auzubeh told me the story of what they'd been through. He said they were living at home in Khartoum when fighting broke out without warning.
--:-- Auzubeh: There was this constant gunfire around their home, shattering all the windows. They were trapped and even had to hide under their bed for months, only leaving to use the bathroom and to scrounge for food.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Most of the time, we would just, we have like one kilo of floor and just put some water on it, spray some salt or anything, and we just eat it. Like it's just barely anything. We lost so much weight
--:-- Auzubeh: So for this middle family things rapidly changed They were living in a nice neighbourhood within a vibrant city Then overnight they find themselves huddled under their bed eating flour. And then even the flour started to run out. This is a certain death. We cannot stay any week longer. We're going to die.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: So after another week of wait, we said, you know what, we're just going to do it on foot. They decided to walk from Khartoum to Omdoman through an area where there was some of the most intense fighting. And they were hoping that soldiers would spare their lives.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And they met other people doing the same thing, many of them frail and starving too. And they walked in a group through essentially a war zone. Light, signs, streets, shops, everything was full with bullets. And you can see the shells. The shells of the bullets were all the place.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Like we were scared because we know this is a no-man's dirt. Something that is hard for people to grasp when they listen to stories like this is that these are areas you knew very well.
--:-- Auzubeh: Yes. Yeah, this is like, I remember when I was a child, we used to live here. So every time I go to school, I would cross these streets. I even had friends who lived there. And this is like a busy place. Like this is like a very lively place.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And to see it in that state, it felt like a piece of horror movie. Like, life has been sucked out of everything.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: It took them six hours to make it to a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Khartoum, where there was still some sense of normality. Walking for six hours through constant gunfire and military checkpoints must feel like an eternity.
--:-- Auzubeh: Exactly. And remember, they were also extremely weak. They had barely eaten in months, only eating spoonfuls of flour.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: So when they finally got to this safer neighbourhood, the first thing they did was just eat a full meal. and we we sit down we sit down to this falafel booth and we start eating like we didn't believe like like i didn't like we were so happy that we didn't care about the taste this is the first time we hold a bread in my life in in in nine months and you eat it we ate a sandwich we took another uh if my dad didn't pull us we would sit the whole day keep eating even till this day we still savour this moment.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Eventually they made it to Omdaman. They're all alive and safe. But before I left the house, Al-Zubar told me what he and his family have been through has completely changed them.
--:-- Auzubeh: You're basically not the same person. The witness, the horror, the tension, the terror, everything. So you will go to your life happy and that, but you're also going to bring these memories with you. You will see that how things can deteriorate quickly, what other people can do to other people. You start to realize how this world works. It's not just flowers and roses. No, there's blood, there's murder, there's theft, there's everything.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: You're listening to The Sunday Story. Stay with us.
--:-- [Announcement from NPR Plus]
--:-- Andrew Mambo: On the plus side, you get sponsor-free listening to over 25 NPR podcasts. On the minus side, you get fewer chances to tap fast forward on your podcast player. On the plus side, you get to support something you care about. On the minus side, you like challenges and think this makes it too easy. So why don't you join us on the plus side of things with NPR Plus. Learn more and sign up at plus.npr.org.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Military commanders, intelligence officials, diplomatic power players, they know things you may not about where the world is headed. And we will pull back the curtain on what they're thinking on Sources and Methods, NPR's new national security podcast.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Our team will help you understand America's shifting role in the world. Listen to Sources and Methods from NPR. Sources and Methods, the crown jewels of the intelligence community. Shorthand for how do we know what's real? Who told us? If you have those answers, you're on the inside. and NPR wants to bring you there. From the Pentagon to the State Department to spy agencies, listen to understand what's really happening and what it means for you. Sources and Methods, the new national security podcast from NPR.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: So, Emmanuel, the war has already damaged so much of Sudan's infrastructure, including its health care system. I understand you spent some time in one of the few hospitals that are still functioning in Omdurman. What did you find there?
--:-- Emmanuel Akinwotu: So the hospital is called Alnao Hospital. It sits on the corner of this sandy side road. It's a large compound with trees and you hear a lot of bird songs. And still the shelling. And people are streaming in and out of it.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Several people were waving prescriptions and begging for money because they couldn't afford medication. Inside the hospital, it's really tense, just crammed. It smells of unwashed bodies, of people who've been struggling for basic sanitation and water.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: There were several people injured, some being cared for by loved ones, lying on beds or even lying on mats on the floor, in the hallways, or pretty much anywhere that they could find room.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: We met the director of the hospital. Okay, thank you for coming here in Sudan. Welcome to Anouk Hospital. His name is Dr. Jamal Mohamed. He's 52 years old and he's an orthopedic surgeon.
--:-- Dr. Jamal Mohamed: What struck me about Dr Jamal was, like a lot of doctors, he's very poised and calm, even in this intense context
--:-- Andrew Mambo: He told me he and all the medical staff haven't been paid a salary since the war started They're basically working for free, only living off small stipends and getting by with virtually no supplies
--:-- Andrew Mambo: He told me they lacked basic equipment or medicine, even at times anaesthetic He said one of the hardest moments was when he had to operate on two children without anesthetics. The bleeding was severe. Maybe I'm going to lose the kids, so I forced to amputate them without anything. Maybe it's one of the most painful experiences.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: The children were just 11 years old and 8 years old. But because of what he and other doctors did, they survived.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: I asked Dr. Jamal whether he felt the outside world cared enough about what was happening in Sudan.
--:-- Dr. Jamal Mohamed: No, no. They forget about us, I think. It's a forgotten war.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: We left his office and he gave us a tour of the hospital grounds. We went to the emergency room and it was totally packed. The doctor sitting here look how they are crowded It so crowded I mean there so many beds Some of the people some of the patients bring their beds from their homes Like this one, people are lying.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: As you see, two patients in my bed. We met people with serious injuries. One man was Musa Atfara. He's 38 and he was on a bed in the hallway. And now he's been treated for the wound.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: What happened was, it was a few metres outside of his home when it was bombed. His brother found him and brought him into the hospital.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: All these are small shrapnel from here. The biggest one was here and here. All these are shrapnel. And the shrapnel also pierced his throat, so he struggles to speak.
--:-- Musa Atfara: I don't know what happened at my home. I hope it's good, inshallah.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: He says while he's thankful to have survived, He's not sure where he'll live now because his home has been destroyed.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: From there we went to another wing of the hospital and we saw scores of just sick and frail people who were suffering from conditions like diabetes or the flu and rising cases of cholera.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And these are people who are ill. They have not been injured from the war. But it's a part of the world. They are ill because they didn't find their medication. They are ill because they are starving.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: You can call it a collateral damage because of the war, a collateral disease because of the war. And half of Sudan's population now faces starvation.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Then he took me to another part of the hospital, and we hear this loud explosion. Some victims that came to us without information.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: It's artillery shells being fired close to us. It sounds so loud. Yeah, it sounds very loud and very scary. And for me, it's frightening. But for Dr Jamal, it's become normal.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Then we arrived at these two buildings opposite one another. And one of them was a morgue. There was a cold room and we could see this covered body of someone who died earlier in the day.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: We kept them here. We washed them here sometimes on our Islamic way. And then this is what we're wrapping them in it.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Then Dr Jamal turned on a computer and showed me hundreds of photographs of unidentified people who died there. They have nobody here, no family, or we don't know their families. And you take their pictures in case anyone... Yes, I'm taking the pictures, putting them in the social media, maybe some family they know their kids and some find them. But most of them aren't found.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: So we kept them here and we buried them.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: While we're in the morgue, we start to hear this different sound coming from a nearby building. It's from the maternity ward.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Here's my friend. I just have a baby right now. Oh, you just had a baby? Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank God. OK, thank you.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: The father, Mohamed, is 24 and he's just had a baby girl. Is this your first child?
--:-- Andrew Mambo: The mother, she's doing fine? She's fine.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And we're kind of swept in his joy, in this moment of joy. But this moment doesn't last long, at least for us. Someone comes to tell Dr. Jamal that people have just been brought in, rushed into the emergency ward.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: So we run back there. So there's just been a shelling? Yeah, he came back. Can't see that? And when we arrive, it's in chaos. There's blood all over the floor. Blood everywhere.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: There are dead and injured people all around the ward. Man, young man, his top is soaked in blood. They're trying to ban you. You stay with Emmanuel.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Two doctors are administering CPR on a young man. But despite all their efforts, he doesn't make it. And nearby, his relative begins to weep.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Yet another death to add to an already massive toll. We were only in this hospital for a few hours, but for them, this is their 24-7, their every day throughout this war, this forgotten war, as Dr. Jamal calls it, that has no end in sight.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Emmanuel, thank you so much for this reporting. Thanks for having me.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: This episode was produced by Liza Yeager. It was edited by Jenny Schmidt and Tara Neal. Gilly Moon was our engineer. It was fact-checked by Greta Pittenger. The Sunday Story team includes Justine Yan and Kim Naderfein-Pietersa. Our supervising producer is Liana Simstrom, and Irene Noguchi is our executive producer.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: And a special thanks to WHRB. I'm Andrew Mambo, in for Aisha Roscoe. Up First will be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your day. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend. Thank you.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: On the next through line from NPR. People have real ethical and moral quandaries about this. People are uncomfortable from the very beginning. The business of migrant detention. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Andrew Mambo: Shortwave thinks of science as an invisible force showing up in your everyday life. Powering the food you eat, the medicine you use, the tech in your pocket. Science is approachable because it's already part of your life. Come explore these connections on the Shortwave podcast from NPR.
