Three years of war in Sudan
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Wednesday, the 15th of April. Sudan marks a grim milestone, three years of civil war.
What triggered the civil war in Sudan and what is its current impact?
We hear from a journalist who was trapped in a brutal siege there. President Trump suggests talks with Iran could resume in the next few days. And Ukraine says it's recaptured territory from Russia using just robots. Also in the podcast, the tech bosses using AI to create digital twins. The bot passed with flying colours.
How has the humanitarian crisis in Sudan escalated?
Employees could not distinguish between the human CEO and the bot CEO correctly.
And... Talking to people we don't know that well puts us in a good mood. It exposes us to new information. It's a source of novelty and learning and new perspectives. And it's a chance to put something good into the world.
How small talk can have big benefits. It's three years since a power struggle between two armed factions in Sudan erupted into full-blown civil war. The fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary rapid support forces has led to a de facto partition of the country and triggered the world's largest humanitarian crisis. The fall of the city of Al-Fasha in the western region of Darfur last October was one of the most brutal episodes of the conflict. Journalist Mohammed Suleiman was there, facing a communications blackout that cut off his connections to the outside world. He's now made it to safety and shared his story, as Barbara Platt-Usher reports.
This sound is so familiar and so crucial to how we live our lives. But when Mohamed Suleiman entered the telecoms office in Port Sudan in January, he hadn't heard a phone ring for a very long time. He'd been isolated by conflict and unable to convey fully the horrors he was witnessing. I was flustered because people were talking on their phones inside the office. Throughout the past three years, my phone has mostly been silent. After I inserted the SIM card, my tears flowed. When his phone sprang to life, it was pinging with three years of messages. News of colleagues who died.
Friends asking whether Mohamed was alive.
A few days ago, a friend called me saying he thought I had died. Some people had told him that I was in Port Sudan. So he called me, but he didn't believe it until I called him back by video. Then he broke down in tears. Mohamed had been trapped in the western city of Al-Fasher, an epicenter of the war. From the beginning, communications were very unstable because of the fighting. But that became a full blackout when the paramilitary rapid support forces laid siege to the city. In some ways, the silence was almost as deadly as the violence. He felt suffocated as he watched people, including children, die of hunger, thirst and disease. He was unable to call and warn others when he saw drones coming. Once, a shell narrowly missed him, but he lay still for half an hour, clutching his useless phone.
And when the RSF finally took over the city in October last year, the relentless daily trauma exploded into apocalyptic scenes. The scenes of displacement are indescribable. It was like the Day of Judgment on earth. We saw dead children in the streets. We saw women crying from extreme hunger and thirst. And because they were too weak to carry their children, so they left them on the road. There were people we knew by name, and we knew their fathers, but we could not provide anything for them. There was no food, no water, no first aid to save them or to carry them with us. You cannot do anything, so you step over them, jump over them, cry, and continue walking. Many fled the fighting to the nearest safe place, the town of Tawila.
The road they took was littered with the dead and injured. If there'd been a way to call for help, says Mohamed, they wouldn't have had to leave so many wounded behind. There are things I cannot describe because they are inhumane. I cannot talk about them. And unfortunately, the media did not convey the scene.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:59
2
What triggered the civil war in Sudan and what is its current impact?
0:59–1:22
3
How has the humanitarian crisis in Sudan escalated?
1:22–10:10
4
What experiences did journalist Mohammed Suleiman share about living through the conflict?
10:10–32:30
Speakers
10 identifiedMore from Global News Podcast
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