After the Return, the Beginning

Umaima Abdullah
Why do these streets seem so desolate?
Why do the people look so weary, and the trees stand without shade, like sticks planted in barren soil? Why are the houses so forlorn, with most of their inhabitants gone?
I returned after two years, and life is cautiously finding its way back into cities reclaimed from abduction—yet they remain ill, still bearing the scars of invasion.
The Janjaweed occupiers had remained here for nearly a full year. Their prolonged presence exhausted the city, like a plague; like a black hole, they swallowed it whole—like hell itself—reducing its vitality to ruin.
The day was still, heavy with heat; the temperature was nearing forty-three degrees. The road was empty of passers-by, save for a few elderly men sitting on a worn mat beneath the meagre shade of a tree. Nearby, an old woman tended a small charcoal stove, with a kettle upon it and five cups arranged around her, preparing to pour tea. I asked the driver to stop and approached them. After greeting her, I asked the price of a cup of mint tea. She replied that she had no mint.
I sat on the only stool beside her and asked how she had fared. She said she had not left her home throughout the war. What she had seen, she said, was beyond anything she had ever witnessed or heard of before—fighters with long, unkempt hair, drooping lips reaching their jaws, and a pungent smell that preceded their arrival. They spoke a language she had never heard, neither among Arabs nor foreigners.
I asked whether she still had customers. One of the men answered on her behalf: “No one comes anymore. I told her there’s no point in coming—just pointless hardship.”
Perhaps she does not come solely for income. Perhaps she comes in search of refuge from madness. Reality here is harsher than imagination; beneath that sorrowful tree, among those men, she tries to keep herself company.
This is what it means to return—to walk through their traces that still linger, as though they remain suspended in the air. Everywhere, people speak of the Janjaweed, speaking incessantly as if to help their minds grasp what they cannot yet fully comprehend. Here unfolded one of the most brutal wars in Sudan’s history.
It is as though the people are no longer the same people we once knew, but others who have emerged from caves deep in darkness. They carry hearts pierced by the black days they endured, eyes wandering in search of the lives they once had, heads turning anxiously. Their hands are dry, their faces pale from the scarcity of water. Their tongues falter in speech, afraid that their survival may yet prove an illusion—that they have not truly escaped.
The neighbourhoods are desolate. The heavy wind roams through empty houses, entering through open windows and leaving through unlatched doors—its sound the only presence. Trust in safety has been lost, and how can trust, once shattered by war and betrayal, be restored?
I walked through the streets and wondered: how do we begin again? Where does one begin? And who will carry the torch on behalf of society—who, indeed?
Who will shorten the distances, pour the pure water of life, restore reassurance to people’s hearts, and bring back the streets’ music, the pupils to their schools, the workers to their factories, the crops to their fields, and the traders to their markets? Who will take the first step, beginning with the rising sun?
For many here in Khartoum, life will begin from nothing—from zero. A silent confrontation with the memory of war and the days of flight. Clearing rubble, cleaning debris, repairing doors, searching for water, restoring electricity, reopening homes, letting water flow again in the courtyards, and welcoming back neighbours. A home is more than shelter; it is proof that beginning again is still possible. People find reassurance in one another, and stability slowly returns.
Yet deep within, something remains—hidden between the ribs. Something that still needs careful mending. It is the soul itself, in need of repair, and it will take time—no short time.
Here lies the role of leadership—visionary leadership—whose words become like an elixir of life, like safety itself. Under such leadership, the nation becomes a vast moral home. Leadership that says what remains is enough to rebuild. Leadership capable of transforming individual grief into collective action; of turning slow recovery into a vision of the future, one that is tangible and achievable. Leadership that restores people’s faith in life when they have lost faith in themselves.
History offers lessons and examples, and Sudan does not lack a past from which to rise again.
Across the world, from Germany to Rwanda, from South Korea to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lebanon, nations have risen again from profound devastation—through collective will and inspired leadership.
Sudan is no exception. It possesses that hidden strength: the courage to acknowledge collapse, and the certainty that the homeland is not a choice, that downfall is not destiny, and that the road does not end at the stumble—indeed, sometimes it is where the beginning truly lies.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=12595