Khartoum Is No Longer a Terrifying City, Nor a Terrified One

Sudanhorizon – Mohamed Osman Adam
Two years after I fled Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, in terror while it was under the control of the Rapid Support Forces following the outbreak of war in April 2023, I returned to the city in August 2026.
The Khartoum I smelled, examined, heard and saw this week was a different city. Yet the most reassuring feeling—and the most striking feature that never left my mind—was that it had become a safer and more stable place.
Yes, Khartoum is struggling to rise again, but it is doing so with dignity. I entered the city apprehensively, but it did not take long for me to realise and become convinced that Khartoum is no longer terrifying, nor is it terrified.
When I fled Khartoum in 2024, fear was everywhere.
Armed men would suddenly appear, rob you of your phone and possessions, and subject you to physical and psychological abuse. Thugs could pounce without warning, harass you, and take whatever they deemed worth taking. A bullet could strike you at any moment, without anyone being able to help, protest or complain.
Flight was the rule, and keeping out of sight was the advice you heard whenever two people gathered.
The city was seething with terror, and people were constantly looking over their shoulders in fear. People feared one another and trusted no one. If you were carrying money and wanted to buy something, you were an easy target—a potential target for gunfire.
You had to be extremely cautious and constantly on your guard, because the seller himself might be an informer who could report you to the Rapid Support Forces. They might then come and take whatever money you possessed—the money your expatriate relatives had worked hard to send to support the family—or throw you out of your home into the streets, or send you to one of the temporary detention centres in the middle of the city, stripped of everything.
People feared everything, especially the militias scattered throughout the city.
The atmosphere was suffocating, not only because of the smell of explosives and ammunition, but also because of the stench of corpses, the piles of rubbish that covered the pavements, the smell of the maggots filling the air, and the relentless swarms of flies.
In most neighbourhoods, it was difficult even to find a place to cross from one side of the street to the other because of the piles of rubbish and mountains of dirt.
Today, with all that gone, there is hardly anyone to thank more than Khartoum State Governor Ahmed Osman Hamza for what he has accomplished.
Khartoum was paralysed, diseased and terrifying. Wherever the militias were present, there was the threat and danger of being shot, losing one’s freedom, or even losing any sense of stability.
Sitting and waiting indefinitely had become the norm.
Khartoum Is No Longer Terrifying
Today, Khartoum is no longer terrifying, nor is it terrified.
In the markets and even in the streets, people used to walk in fear, constantly looking left and right as they moved through the alleys of their neighbourhoods, treading carefully, almost on tiptoes.
Most importantly, no one knew whether they would emerge from beneath the rubble or reach their destination safely.
Food was scarce, water was unavailable, and healthcare was a distant dream.
But what was missing most was security and trust.
I used to walk around the area with my heart pounding in fear of a possible attack, whether a direct attack or one aimed at anything in the vicinity of my home.
Thousands of people died in Khartoum in exactly this way.
For a year and a half, I never once took my mobile phone out of my pocket, nor did I speak on it anywhere in public.
The Arab Market in the centre of the city had been deserted. Nothing moved for fear of gunfire.
The market had been reduced to a heap of corrugated iron sheets and shattered concrete. The pavements were covered with ammunition casings, bullets and shell fragments.
Khartoum’s famous forests, which sheltered at least 36 species of resident and migratory birds, were destroyed. Hundreds of acres of woodland were cleared and burned.
Life came to a complete standstill:
No water. No electricity. No economic activity. No human interaction. No public transport. No passengers. No cars. No rickshaws.
That was only two years ago.
A City Coming Back to Life
Today, buses, public transport lorries and rickshaws are everywhere.
Running water has become normally available. Electricity has reached more than half of the neighbourhoods. Markets are bustling with activity, as are schools and hospitals.
Most importantly, families are returning.
The number of families indeed remains small in some neighbourhoods. But many families have sent out “advance parties” of men, most of them young, to visit their homes and assess whether conditions are suitable for their families’ return.
With the heavy military presence and heavily armed troops largely absent from the streets—apart from checkpoints at intersections leading into the city centre—the state is now seriously preparing to receive those returning.
There is something unmistakably clear that you can feel and see in Khartoum today:
Neither the state nor the city poses the threat to life that it once did three years ago.
Nor is it afraid to declare its readiness to pay the price of reconstruction and rehabilitation.
Drones and kamikaze drones may indeed launch attacks on other areas, and the possibility of Khartoum itself being targeted remains—however small, even if it were only one per cent.
That possibility exists.
But one thing is certain: the millions who fled areas under the control of the Rapid Support Forces for areas under the control of the government and the Sudanese Armed Forces feel safe, and their dignity is protected.
And that, in itself, is enough to bring to mind the words of another poet:
If a man has not stained his honour with blame,
then every garment he wears is beautiful.
And:
It does us no harm that we are few,
when our neighbour is mighty
and the neighbour of the “others” is weak.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=17769