'Leaving Omdurman' - Saad Obeid About the First Months of War in Sudan

WHO

A destroyed room at the Aalia Specialist Hospital in Omdurman (file photo).

21 November 2024

Dabanga (Port Sudan)

Cairo / Amsterdam — After Radio Dabanga's English team obtained The Disaster, a book written by Saad Obeid, professor in theatre at the Sudan University, about life in Omdurman during the first five months of the war, it was decided to publish excerpts of the text. Sharing Obeid's memories means sharing the experiences of many Sudanese in areas occupied by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who lived through the same dangers, mental and physical assaults, perhaps even worse.

When war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its paramilitary counterpart, the RSF, on April 15 last year, the RSF took control of large parts of Khartoum, Khartoum North, and Omdurman. People living in the frontlines fled their homes, but many others, expecting that the battles would not last long, chose to stay.

The paramilitaries told the people that only abandoned houses would be prone to plundering, so many men sent their families to safer places and stayed at home themselves. When the war continued, however, the RSF statements turned out to be untrue.

People who stayed, suffered from hunger, and water and power outages, and from repeated looting of their homes. They went through hard times and many did not only have to endure only physical abuse, but also mental assaults, over and over again.

Dr Saad Yousif Obeid (73), retired professor and chair holder at the Faculty of Music and Drama of the Sudan University of Science and Technology, also stayed, together with his youngest son, in his beloved home in El Arda, a neighbourhood in old Omdurman. His eldest son and his daughter left their homes when the RSF occupied the area.

Obeid and his youngest son stayed in their home for months, until the situation became too dangerous. They managed to flee to Wad Madani, capital of El Gezira, and from there, Obeid travelled to El Gedaref in eastern Sudan that remained under control of the army.

'Write!'

In El Gedaref, Obeid found refuge in the house of his good friend Osman El Badawi and spent the last quarter of 2023 there. El Badawi "talked about events I missed during the long period we had not spoken to each other, and I told him about the disaster months in Omdurman," Obeid relates in his account of the difficult months they spent in El Arda. "After each story, Osman told me: 'Write! You should write it down!"'

And Obeid sat down and wrote the story of the "Black Day", the day he and his son were attacked in his house. They managed to live through the violent incident, though he lost his hearing in his left ear. He did not write more about Omdurman, because he moved again. "I thought Port Sudan was the end of our road, but it stretched north, to Cairo."

In the Egyptian capital, Obeid began writing again. "I did not start the story from the beginning, but instead wrote about the events after Black Day" that took place on the 99th day of the war.

"I was looking for an answer to the question that was haunting me: what was it what made me I leave my house in Omdurman? Before Black Day, I never thought of abandoning my house, even if they replaced it with a palace.

"My wife and I saved to buy a plot, and together we witnessed the construction of the house. She left our world after she put her mark on every brick. It is a blessing of Allah that she was spared from having to live through the war. I am sure that she would never would have even thought about leaving home, no matter how many disasters we would witness."

He continues: "Whether I left, fled, escaped, or migrated .. call it whatever you want .. What happened on one day, no, only a few hours of this day, and incidents in the following days and weeks that made us decide to leave our beloved home behind."

'Invaders'

While relating about the incidents, Obeid hardly refers to the RSF but uses the word "invaders". He chose to do so because after the paramilitaries had occupied the capital, allied bandits and vagabonds, attracted by ample opportunities to plunder, followed them.

Obeid states that he did not always understand what "the invaders" were saying, and explained to Radio Dabanga that among them were men from countries west of Sudan who followed "their brothers of the RSF" to profit from the war.

Many soldiers of the RSF, established in 2013, have been recruited from among the Janjaweed, consisting of impoverished members of Arab herders' tribes, reportedly also minors, in western Sudan, such as the Misseriya and the Rizeigat. As the large Rizeigat tribe is spread between Sudan, Chad and Niger, tribesmen from these countries, motivated by a shared Arab tribal background, also joined the RSF.

In May 2023, fighters from Sahel countries such as Chad, Niger, and Mali were reportedly flooding into the country. Radio Tamazuj stated in June this year that the RSF makes use of the Central African Republic (CAR) as a 'supply hub', for arms but also combatants. The Sudan Media Forum last week warned of inter-tribal hostilities, as the RSF launched an intensive recruitment campaign in Darfur and Kordofan early last month, mobilising more fighters along tribal lines.

Obeid wrote his story about the Black Day first. It is followed by his report about incidents that happened after this very difficult day, and what made him finally flee his house, his hometown, and country, to join the more than 1.2 million Sudanese who sought refuge in Egypt.

Black Day

by Saad Yousif Obeid

I do not know how to describe the 99th day of the war except that it was an extremely difficult day. It was a Saturday, like the day the war was born and a black day in my and my son's life. Maybe it was the blackest of our days ever.

I woke up in the middle of the night. I heard the wheezing of warplanes, the sounds of heavy artillery and showers of bullets. I did not pay attention, as we had been living with these sounds for months.

I searched for the torch. My feet led me out of the room, and I wandered around the house without a purpose. The cat that had taken refuge in our house since the first days of war, followed me. I pitied her as we had nothing to feed her with. I wandered through the house. My youngest boy was sleeping in the living room. He was the only child who had stayed with me since the outbreak of the war.

At sunrise, I took my laptop and continued writing the last act of a documentary drama text on the experiences of my friends and I during the first months of the war.

My daughter phoned me. I had not heard from her for some time. She had fled with her children to her aunt in Wad Madani, the capital of El Gezira, south of Khartoum. She tried to convince me to leave to a safer place, but I told her we were fine.

My son then entered, looking worried. He threw his telephone under my room refrigerator, said that invaders were trying to break the outer door, and hurried out again. I ended the call quickly, threw my telephone under my bed, and ran towards the yard, where I saw two of them standing in front of my son, accusing him of hiding something.

I greeted them, but neither of them greeted back. They both wore worn clothes and a kadamool, that large scarf covering the face except the eyes. They pointed their guns at me, and the tallest of them bawled: "What are you hiding here?"

The shorter one asked why we did not open the door immediately, and shouted in my son's face: "You opened the door only after you hid what you wanted to hide .. weapons .. snipers .. army intelligence ..."

Before I could reply, they pushed us inside at gunpoint.

My library caught their attention because it was the only room that was closed. The short one entered it cautiously. He then called out, astonished and disappointed at the same time: "Books!?". While the tall one was still pointing his weapon at us, he asked: "Where is the safe?"

I answered: "We do not have a safe." The tall one called me a liar, pushed me into the library, and took my son with him to the living room. Not much later, I heard my son cry out loud: "By the Almighty God, we don't have a safe!" This was followed by the voice of the tall one: "Confess! Better confess before I shoot you."

I was caught by fear, anxiety, and anger. As I was thinking about the best way to deal with this, the short one ordered me to empty the bookshelves. He asked again about the safe. When I replied, "Didn't we did tell you that we don't have a safe?" he punched me in the chest and shouted: "Liar.. you are all liars! The safe is behind these books!" I shouted at him while at the same time throwing books on the floor: "Is here a safe? Do you see a safe?"

He looked at me in astonishment and turned his gaze at my cabinet. He opened it and took out my diplomas and certificates, important house documents, and family photos. He spelled the titles word by word, and asked me: "Is this your picture? .. Are you a professor at the university? .. Are these are all your cards? ..

I looked at him in anger and did not reply to his questions. Yet, when he asked me about the membership card of the National Congress Party (NCP*), I in turn asked him: "What card?" He answered sarcastically: National Congress remnants .. Are you deaf?" I replied: "I don't have .. because I am not ...." He interrupted me: "We'll find it .. We'll find it soon enough."

He continued to dig up papers, then stopped and asked me: "You are intelligence .. aren't you? .. An intelligence major general .." I denied it and told him that I was a professor at the university, whereupon he called me a professor in intelligence.

Suddenly, the other one came in with his weapon on his shoulder. He held a laundry wire in his hands. As soon as his colleague saw it, he asked if the boy had confessed. His colleague answered him that he would confess soon and went out again.

After a few moments, I heard screaming. I wanted to go out to see my son, but the short one stopped me. He stuck the barrel of his weapon to the back of my head and told me to leave the library. He made me sit on a chair and watched me in silence.

The man then put his weapon aside, sat next to me, and addressed me with artificial friendliness: "You are an old man, you're like my father. I looked at him in suspicion, and he continued: "You are a Muslim .. You possess many Korans and a Muslim, my dear, is not a liar. Of course, you know that Islam is built on five pillars**. He counted them on the fingers of his hand: One .. the testimony of only God but Allah. Two .. Mohammed is the Messenger of God ... Three .. daily prayers .. And four .. uh, uh .. the pilgrimage ... Five .. whoever can find a way to Him ...

His telephone rang. He put his weapon aside, stood up, and answered. He listened and said: "No.. no.. We are not far away. We .. we only crossed the creek .. At your service."

He closed the telephone, and the tall one entered, pushing my son in front of him, and told him to sit next to me. The men began to whisper together, after which the tall one headed to the library, where he began kicking and destroying the books.

I looked at my son. He was tied with the laundry wire. He had several wounds and was bleeding. While his colleague was throwing books on the ground and uttering incomprehensible curses, the short one was moving back and forth in apparent anxiety. He suddenly looked at us and said: "Wouldn't it have been better if you had confessed immediately? Then this would not have happened."

The tall one came out and accused my son of being a sniper. He waved a part of a small pistol in front of us. "So, what is this?"

I began to explain that it was a fake gun used in the theatre, yet before I could finish, he said: "These people must confess!"

He dragged my son to the sitting room. The other man pushed me into the library again and told me to show him the safe and the rest of the pistol. The tall one returned angrily and said: "These people do not want to confess. Let's liquidate them. You do the father, and I do the son."

He went out and I heard two shots. When I did not hear my son's voice, I entered into a state of immense terror. All my senses dulled.

The tall one returned again and shouted to his colleague: "Why didn't you kill this guy?" The short one replied quietly: "This man is sane and will confess." The tall man pushed him away, stuck the barrel of his gun to my forehead, and shouted: "Recite the Shahada***!" My body was shaking, and I do not know how my tongue obeyed me. All I know is that I uttered the shahada out loud as if I had begged for it.

The tall one then said: "Oh dear, are you going to die? I'm not going to kill you, but I'll break your legs. So, you'll need a wheelbarrow to go to your work."

Meanwhile, the short one had found a small case and was opening it. It contained a power drill. The tall one raised it high and shouted joyfully: "This boy will now confess" and went out. I understood that my son was still alive, but worried about what the tall one could do to my son with this dangerous machine in his hand. Yet, I heard only curses and insults and the voice of my son swearing that there was no safe in the house and that we did not have the key to the vehicle parked outside the house.

Hearing the mention of a car, the short one threw aside the papers he was trying to read, and asked me: "This is your car, isn't it?" I answered that it was the car of a company and that my eldest son used to drive it.

"Where is he?"

"He left Omdurman."

"Where is the key?"

"The car does not have a key. It opens with a fingerprint. Your men have asked us more than 100 times about this car and could not open it. If you succeed, please take it as we grew tired of it."

I was standing in front of the bookshelves. Suddenly the tall one entered, very agitated, with froth around his mouth. Without saying anything, he fired two shots at me. One bullet passed my right ear and the other my left ear. The room was filled with thick black smoke. The smell of gunpowder was suffocating. The sounds of the shots had been too loud to bear. I could hardly hear something. Sounds came to me from the bottom of a deep well.

The short one then entered my bedroom and began emptying the wardrobe. The tall one grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to the living room where I found my son standing, still tied. He sat me on a chair, connected the drill to a power outlet and told my son: "If you do not confess, I will break your father's legs".

He pointed the drill at my thigh and turned it on. It pierced my clothes but before it touched my body, he lifted the machine. He did it so quickly that the drill caught his kadamool (scarf covering the face) which tightened around his throat. Terrified, he turned off the drill and threw it away.

He then pushed me to my bedroom, where the short one was still searching the contents. I was so exhausted that I did not pay attention to him. I just wanted to lie down.

After a short while, the tall one began to look under the bed with his phone torch and found my telephone. It was the first time I saw him smiling. The anger disappeared from his face as if he had achieved victory in a major decisive battle. He continued searching and exclaimed suddenly: "A laptop! A laptop!"

He ordered me to open the laptop. The men both sat down on my right and left, and I typed the password, in English: SARA. The short one tried to read it, but when he failed, he ordered me to say it. Hearing the name, the two of them rose up and shouted: "Sarah? Sarah of the aircraft?" I asked surprised: "What aircraft? This password is six years old. The tall one replied: "You are a remnant [a follower of the Al Bashir regime]? Why did you choose the name Sarah of the aircraft?" I said: "Sara is the name of my daughter." The tall one shouted at me: "Liar.. you liar.. you do not have a daughter!" I said: "Okay, I'll prove it to you."

I looked through the documents and only found an old school certificate of Sarah. I handed it to the short one who started to spell the name letter by letter. He handed the paper to his colleague who grabbed the paper upside down, stared at it, and then threw it on the ground.

The certificate fell next to a set of keys. The tall one bent down and lifted them. He picked a car key, looked at me maliciously and said: "Isn't this the key to the car outside?" I denied it and he pushed me out to my car stored inside the house. All their attempts to start the car failed. The tall one asked about the other keys. When I said that they belonged to the apartment upstairs, he told me to open the door.

Exhausted, I climbed the stairs. They urged me hurry up and pushed me with the butts of their weapons. I opened the apartment, and the short one said to his colleague: "Shafshafa!" - which means 'plundering' or 'loot", a word that had entered our spoken language with the arrival of the invaders. The long one started to plunder the apartment while the short one pushed me down to my room where he searched for more shafshafa.

I sat on the bed watching him. He found an envelope containing my old, broken watches, and he filled his pockets with them. Then he found a small box, tore it open, and found a medal. He asked me accusingly: "What is this?" I told him that it was the Golden Medal of Science, Literature and Arts. When he heard the word 'golden', his eyes widened, and he shouted joyfully: Gold! Gold!

I wanted to tell him what the medal meant, but he did not listen. He wiped the medal with his scarf, placed it carefully in his pocket, and dug in the box again. When he found my silver wedding ring, he also put it in his pocket. I told him that these things were important to me, but he told me to shut up "before I shoot you".

His telephone rang again. He answered and his face changed. He stood up and whispered in the phone. When the call ended, he sat next to me and stared at me from time to time.

Then he asked me quietly: "Are you a general in the intelligence service?

I replied angrily: "I told you about 100 times that I'm a professor .. a professor in the...". He interrupted me calmly: "Don't get mad. You are a professor at the university and a major general in intelligence, so just confess it."

When I did not respond, he opened a drawer and found my passport with some papers inside. He waved it in front of me and asked me what they were. I said: "My passport, a visa, tickets, and an invitation. I was supposed to travel four months ago but the war ...". I stopped talking because I noticed that he was trying to read the invitation. After he succeeded in deciphering some words, he raised his voice: "Bo .. board .. truce. I corrected him: "Board of Trustees .." but either he got bored or ashamed, as he collected the documents and returned them to the drawer.

When he was doing this, a third man came in. He did not greet any of us but took a quick look at me and turned towards the short one. The man was tall and wore clean, blue trousers and a shirt of the same fabric and colour... His features were different from those of his colleagues.

He asked the short one: "What's up?"

The man answered respectfully: "We caught followers of Al Bashir."

"Where are they?"

The short one pointed to me, but the newcomer ignored me and asked him if they had found documents that could prove this. The man hesitated a little before answering: We found a pistol. Haroun took it."

I sensed danger and quickly explained that it was a fake gun used in the theatre. The third man, however, left the room. The short one then also left and closed the curtains behind him.

For quite a while, I remained alone in the room. I was very worried about my son, whose voice I did not hear, and I decided to go out. When I reached the door, I heard footsteps approaching and the third man saying: "I will talk to your father."

My son entered the room, alone. He was untied, so I relaxed a bit. He sat next to me, and with a gesture of my hand I told him to remain silent as they might be eavesdropping.

For almost half an hour, we sat looking at each other in silence. We did not hear any movement in the house. I stood up, opened the curtains, and I saw no one. I checked the rest of the rooms, and the apartment upstairs, and found them all empty.

I went back to my son who told me that when the third man entered, the tall one saluted him respectfully and showed him the fake gun. The man took a quick look at it, turned to my son, and asked him who had beaten him. My son pointed to the tall one who left the room in a hurry. The man asked my son to tell him what happened. He did not comment and then led my son to my room.

After we were certain they had left, we went out to the street. The few remaining neighbours happily gathered around us. They had not expected us to survive after the shots they had heard.

On that black day they took away many things that meant a lot to me... I also lost my hearing in my left ear, but I thanked God for being alive."

Radio Dabanga will post the second part selected from Obeid's book The Disaster on Sunday.

* The National Congress Party (NCP), established in 1998 by key political figures in the National Islamic Front, dominated politics in Sudan for more than 10 years. It was chaired by President Omar Al Bashir - who was ousted in April 2019, during the December 2018 Revolution. The NCP was dissolved in November 2019.

** Five key practices form the foundation of Muslim life. These five pillars of Islam are the Shahada (declaration of faith), Salaa (prayer), Zakat (alms giving), Sawm (fasting), and the Hajj (pilgrimage).

*** The Shahada (testimony) is the declaration of faith in one God (Allah) and His messenger. It is the most sacred statement in Islam. Dying Muslims are advised to recite the Shahada, to be their last words.

Saad Yousif Obeid, born in Omdurman in 1951, studied at the High Institute for Music and Theatre in Khartoum. He then travelled to Cairo, Egypt, where he studied at the Arts Academy in Gizeh and obtained a High Diploma in theatre directing in 1985. Back in Khartoum, he continued his studies at the Sudan University of Science and Technology, where he graduated in 1996 in art criticism. His Ph.D. research, concluded in 2003, focussed on Sudanese television drama. When the war broke out in his country, Obeid was chair holder at the Faculty of Music and Drama of the Sudan University. He is currently residing in Cairo, registered as refugee.

Read the original article on Dabanga.