Hundreds of families were moving in both directions last month as I drove between Port Sudan – the country’s wartime capital – and Khartoum, the real capital, now under army control after a painful occupation by the Rapid Support Forces.
Heading toward Khartoum were returnees crammed into small trucks, packed full of furniture and other household items. They had fled two years earlier when the RSF swept into the city. Now, some were returning to see what was left of their homes.
But going the other way – back to Port Sudan and beyond – were others who had already returned and decided to leave again after finding only devastation: their homes gutted and their neighbourhoods without basic services.
Salah Mohamed's family of six was one of them. They had returned from Egypt to their Khartoum neighbourhood of Arkaweet, but the conditions there forced them to change their minds after just two weeks in the city.
“We had bought a bit of furniture and other property from Cairo in order to go back to our home in Khartoum, but we were shocked because there is no way of life here,” Mohamed said. “There is no water, electricity, or health centres.”
I heard the same story again and again during two weeks of reporting in Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman. People had come back hoping to rebuild, only to find their homes looted by the RSF (mine was too), and neighbourhoods destroyed.
In some places, cholera has broken out, and even in areas now held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their allies, residents have had to grapple with the fear of RSF drone strikes, or of the paramilitary group returning to the city.
I also spoke to some of the millions who never left – people who endured two years of RSF abuses and army bombardments. Some now face new suspicion from the SAF and allied militias, who often mistrust civilians who stayed during the occupation.
Two residents of Khartoum’s al-Kalakla area, who preferred not to be named, recalled how dozens of people were recently rounded up in a square in the middle of their neighbourhood to witness the summary execution of five alleged RSF collaborators.
Far from normal
The RSF took over Khartoum at the outset of the war, and led a campaign of terror against residents. Thousands were held in detention centres, women and girls were raped, and homes were occupied so that fighters could hide from SAF airstrikes.
The paramilitary group led one of the biggest looting campaigns of any capital city in recent history, carting away precious artefacts from museums as well as precious belongings from people’s homes.
The army’s recapture of the city marked a momentous shift in the conflict, and brought a wave of relief – both for those who stayed through the fighting and for others, like me, who had left.
But while there is more security now, and police stations have reopened in a few areas, Khartoum is still deeply militarised. A large number of those present in the city are either army personnel or civilians who took up arms with the SAF to fight the RSF.
Big parts of the city, meanwhile, remain incredibly difficult to live in due to the scale of the destruction, the collapse of basic services, and the lack of access to food and markets.
Driving through the city, I passed the remnants of many buildings reduced to ash. Trees were growing wildly, and dead animals lay in the streets, alongside mounds of garbage mixed with abandoned furniture, vehicles, and old electrical appliances.
Downtown Khartoum, which witnessed heavy battles before the SAF retook the city, was especially badly impacted, with many iconic landmarks among the worst hit places.
I saw the presidential palace scarred by shelling; Jackson Square – one of Khartoum’s busiest bus depots – deserted; and the high-rise commercial towers near the Nile confluence, all badly damaged.
There were no real signs of life at Khartoum’s central market. Once one of the busiest places in the city, the RSF had turned it – over the past two years – into a hub for selling weapons and drugs.
One of the few people trying to make a living there – a woman selling vegetables to soldiers – did so despite witnessing the market being hit by a SAF airstrike just a few months ago. “Dead bodies were thrown inside and around the market,” she recalled.
Just a few blocks away, in the nearby al-Diam district, I met Samir Suleiman. He had recently returned to Khartoum but, like many others, was relying entirely on communal kitchens run by local volunteers from emergency response rooms.
“Life in Kassala, where I was displaced to, was very tough and expensive,” he told me. “But the situation here is gloomy and deteriorating. I think it will take a very long time before life can return to normal.”
Having seen Khartoum, almost all of the returnees I spoke with said they would either head back to the places they were displaced to, or to localities in the adjacent city of Omdurman that escaped RSF rule over the past two years.
Those localities offer people the chance to return to their homes and slowly rebuild. However, they have also become overcrowded in recent weeks, fuelling outbreaks of cholera initially triggered by RSF drone strikes on water and electricity services.
Returnees and Omdurman residents who caught cholera described to me the extremely difficult conditions in hospitals. They said wards are overwhelmed and that in some cases two or three people are having to share a single bed.
RSF and SAF abuses
As well as witnessing the destruction and humanitarian disaster, I spoke to many victims of RSF abuses – people who had endured rape, abduction for ransom, prolonged detention, and torture. They painted a picture of a deeply scarred city.
In the areas of Burri, Al-Haj Youssef, and Amarat, people described facing constant fear of the RSF. Even when somebody was sick, they were afraid to seek help, and when they went to the market, they would buy as much as they could in one go.
Few wanted to leave their homes during the day, but night offered no safety either. RSF fighters would often carry out evening home raids, searching for money, gold, and cars. Civilians were accused of working for the SAF as a pretext to rob them.
One 55-year-old woman said she was abducted by RSF fighters in March near her home in eastern Khartoum. Taken to an abandoned house, she was held with other women in harsh conditions until the army freed them in mid-April.
The woman said some detainees were raped, though, in her case, the fighters demanded a ransom of several thousand dollars. Even after payment, she said she remained in captivity, surviving on a single daily meal of beans for nearly a month.
When the RSF finally left the area, the woman said the detainees freed themselves and stumbled out onto the streets. “We found people celebrating,” she recalled. “SAF soldiers and members of the emergency response rooms helped us get back home.”
Despite celebrations over the RSF’s expulsion from Khartoum, other violations have been committed by the SAF and allied armed groups, including the Al Bara Ibn Malik brigade, the Sudan Shield Forces, and other volunteer militias.
Human rights groups have accused these forces of unlawful killings and detentions across various parts of Khartoum, as well as other states that it has recaptured from the RSF.
Videos have circulated on social media showing soldiers in SAF uniforms detaining or killing people suspected of helping the RSF. The label “cooperator” has become a source of fear, and many feel it is used to target anyone critical of the SAF.
The two residents who witnessed alleged abuses in al-Kalakla said they believe those killed did cooperate with the RSF – helping loot properties in the area – but both strongly objected to the extrajudicial killings.
“I don’t like to see people being killed in this way, outside of the law,” one of them said during an interview in a private location where they felt able to speak freely. “They are bad people but we shouldn’t take the law into our hands.”
Amar Abdul Wahab, a spokesperson for the Al Bara Ibn Malik brigade, denied these accusations. “Accountability of those who cooperated with the RSF is exclusively the responsibility of the SAF, the police and the judiciary system,” he told me.
For now, Khartoum remains a militarised city caught in a deep humanitarian emergency. Those who stayed or returned face a daily battle for survival, while those who hope to come back may have to wait a while longer.
Edited by Philip Kleinfeld.
