Sudan: The massacres will not be tweeted
Ordinary Sudanese are responding to the crisis with humanitarian efforts. But this week their efforts were knee-capped by blocked communications
Liban Mahamed
Abdulkareem Ameen, a Sudanese in Egypt, has been trying to check if his family in Omdurman received the money he sent them recently. “I haven’t talked to them for two days now,” he told The Continent mid-week. At that point, Sudani, MTN Sudan and Zain Sudan, the three main telecom companies in the country, were offline. “My family won’t get the money I sent.”
All day Tuesday and Wednesday, Jamila Mohamed, a Sudanese student in Germany, tried both phone calls and online messaging to reach her mother whom the war displaced to Omdurman from Khartoum. She could not reach her.
“I am completely stressed. I have the worst fears.”
Blocking mass communications is the latest escalation in the country’s conflict, which has entered its eleventh month and shows no sign of slowing down.
On Monday, Sudan’s state news agency accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia of being behind the countrywide communication shutdown. Without denying the accusation, RSF, which is battling the national military for control of the country, said the army had earlier blocked communication in Darfur – which the militia largely controls.
As the armed men traded accusations, the people trying to live through the impacts of their brutal war struggled. Yusuf, a Sudanese activist abroad, is desperately trying to fundraise for a community kitchen in Omdurman to feed displaced civilians. “If the communication blackout continues I won’t be able to send funds to the kitchen,” Yusuf said.
“It has completely paralysed us as a business. We can’t sell because we rely on e-payments,” said Mai Abdelmoniem, who runs an air cooling company. The war has already decimated the business and driven Abdelmoniem to Egypt. “Our last remaining operations are in Port Sudan. I have no idea what’s going on with [my staff] while I’m in another country.” Sudan’s army has announced a new offensive to retake areas from RSF, adding to fears that the communication shutdown will last longer.