The Bells of Return Are Ringing

Al-Musallami Al-Bashir Al-Kabbashi

President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan chose the densely populated district of Al-Kalakla in southern Khartoum to send a message—addressed directly to the people. He declared:

“Our message to all citizens is not to be misled by the rhetoric of doubters, schemers, traitors and agents who stand against the return of citizens.”

He called on the Sudanese to return and contribute to rehabilitating vital facilities and reconstruction, announcing that stability had been restored across wide areas. He stressed that returning home was a voluntary choice for those who wished to do so.

His remarks were preceded by comments from Mohamed al-Faki Suleiman, who stated that Khartoum’s residents would not achieve stability except through a political agreement brokered by the “Quartet”, and that their large-scale return was being incited by what he termed the “Port Sudan government”.

I have scarcely left Khartoum State throughout the three years of war. We saw the capital fully under the rebels’ control in the early months. We also saw it resist with remarkable courage, as though drawing strength from legend itself, raising its lists of martyrs.

The memory remains vivid: the steadfastness at General Command headquarters, the Armoured Corps, Yarmouk, Central Reserve, and Signals and Engineers. We reported stories of siege and fighting on empty stomachs. I will not forget the day senior officers fell as martyrs at Halfaya al-Muluk, nor the great crossing from Omdurman over the three bridges into Khartoum and Khartoum North. We witnessed extraordinary patience in civilian institutions, especially medical facilities such as Al-Naw Hospital in Omdurman, which stood firm in the face of attacks on civilians.

We watched the capital’s liberation moment by moment as advancing forces closed in steadily from north, east and south, converging at its heart—the Republican Palace. And who among the people did not see the remnants of the rebellion scrambling in flight at Jebel Aulia Bridge under cover of darkness? That image will never fade from the national memory.

Every stone lifted from Khartoum’s rubble tells a story of deliberate, vindictive destruction.

Today, as President al-Burhan calls on residents to return and engage in reconstruction, the call is not made lightly. From its strained treasury, the so-called “Port Sudan government”—as Mohamed al-Faki Suleiman describes it—has restored life to Khartoum from beneath ash and debris.

Touring Khartoum’s neighbourhoods after their recovery from rebel control, I noticed something striking: it is not only militia bombs and drone strikes that destroy urban life, but abandonment itself. The absence of inhabitants turns palaces into caves whose freshness time devours. Neighbourhoods delayed in welcoming back their residents are steeped in melancholy; even once-bright mansions appear cloaked in sorrow.

In walking through Khartoum, the contrast between the inhabited house and the deserted one became clear.

No fair-minded observer can deny that the government’s efforts to restore Khartoum to its former state have been not merely extraordinary, but beyond what any administration could be expected to achieve under present conditions. The Supreme Committee for Preparing Khartoum for the Return of Its People has carried out its mandate with remarkable competence. The energy and seriousness of Ibrahim Jaber, the perseverance of Governor Ahmed Othman Hamza, and the dedication of Interior Minister Police General Babiker Samra and police leaders have made what once seemed impossible now possible.

If destruction pushed Khartoum decades backwards, their work has placed the capital on the track toward renewal. And if reconstruction is impossible without residents, then Khartoum is now ready to welcome its people home after years of deprivation.

The President’s call for return and rebuilding was not a rebuttal to politicians whose imagination has narrowed and whose path back to relevance depends on external mediation. For some, the simple act of citizens returning home has become a political bargaining chip—a means to revive a failing political trade by withholding the right of return.

Al-Burhan is not inviting people into peril, but toward recovery and dignified living. He and his colleagues endured the perilous years; the ember he carried patiently in his hand has finally cooled. While professional politicians sheltered abroad may live in comfort, refugees have grown weary of exile, and their homes stand ready to receive them.

In this call, al-Burhan speaks with renewed confidence. After developments in Yemen, the region and the world have come to recognise the dangers of conspiracies aimed at fragmenting states—warnings he had long voiced.

Khartoum today is safer than many of the countries hosting our diaspora.

Khartoum is the soul of our nation. Life will not return to Sudan until its soul returns. However far and wide exile has scattered us, this war has taught that no place equals the homeland or can replace it. As media reports increasingly attest, host countries are growing weary of Sudanese refugees; their dignity has too often been eroded.

Now their homeland has opened its arms, raising its voice in a call to return—and to rebuild life anew.

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