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DUBAI: Freelance Sudanese photographer Faiz Abubakr documented the crisis in his native country that began in April 2023 when violence erupted between rival military factions.

The Sudanese armed forces, led by Sudan's de facto president Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, have been locked in battle with the fast-backed paramilitary forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, since then.

Despite the immense danger, Abubakr felt compelled to take to the streets with his camera to record the unfolding catastrophe in his hometown of Khartoum and capture the impact of the generals' bitter rivalry on its beleaguered citizens.

“Many questions crossed my mind about the lives of these residents who fled the scourge of war on a daily basis, whose homes and possessions were consumed by fire and who died in tragic ways,” Abubakr told Arab News. “These questions were about how they spent their days under the roar of planes and explosions, which forced them to abandon their homes and were haunted by the curses of displacement.”

According to the UN, Sudan is now in the grip of the world's worst internal displacement crisis, with millions forced from their homes, including Abubakr who initially sought refuge in Egypt with his family.

After a few months, he returned to Sudan to work for several news agencies until he was wounded, he said, by an RSF gunman. While he recovered, he and his family moved to Kassala, located in eastern Sudan, close to the Eritrean border.

Abubakr's clients included AFP, Le Monde and The New York Times. Before the conflict, he received the 2022 World Press Photo award in the category “Africa, alone”. Now he's just trying to survive.

“The situation is much worse than before,” Abubakr said. “Life is very hard because of the lack of food and livelihood. There is the threat of famine in all parts of the country.”

Even during his displacement, Abubakr continued to photograph the conflict unfolding around him, particularly its impact on civilians forced from their homes.

“I'm trying to document their stories, but it's very difficult to photograph for security reasons,” he said. “I lost everything during the war, including most of my photography equipment. My psychological condition is getting worse.”

Abubakr is not alone. The conflict has had a devastating impact on the health and well-being of Sudanese civilians, according to a new report by Médecins Sans Frontieres, whose staff operate in eight Sudanese states.

The population faced “horrific levels of violence, succumbing to large-scale fighting and surviving repeated attacks, abuse and exploitation” by warring parties, the report said.

“The violence in Sudan shows no signs of abating,” writes Vickie Hawkins, executive director of MSF UK, in the report. “In fact, it is escalating at a rate that exceeds our ability to process, document and respond to the daily events that our teams and patients experience in Sudan.”

The report is based on medical and operational data collected by MSF from 15 April 2023 to 15 May this year. It notes the patterns of violence and abuse seen by MSF teams and the devastating impact of the fighting on public health.

In the report, an unnamed health worker at Al-Nao hospital in Omdurman, west of Khartoum, described the aftermath of recent bombings in a residential area of ​​the city.

“About 20 people arrived and died soon after. Some have already arrived dead,” said the paramedic. “Most of them came with their hands or feet already hanging, already amputated. Some with only a small patch of skin holding two limbs together.

“A patient came in with an amputated leg, and the attendant followed behind, holding the missing limb.”

According to MSF, Al-Nao hospital treated 6,776 patients for injuries caused by armed violence between 15 August 2023 and 30 April this year – an average of 26 people per day.

“After 15 months of conflict, the warring parties show a total lack of respect for any civilian life,” Kyle McNally, a project coordinator for MSF, who was recently stationed in the southwestern Sudanese town of Nyala, told Arab News.

“These are the people they claim to represent and fight for. Instead, this is really a war against the people of Sudan in the way it conducts its hostilities. We see very flagrant violations of civil protection and attacks against civilians as well as civilian infrastructure.

“Hospitals and medical staff were not spared. We see numerous attacks against healthcare facilities. The hospital system and the health system have been completely decimated by the fighting.”

According to the UN, Sudan is facing a deepening food crisis, with an estimated 25 million people – including more than 14 million children, of whom 3 million are under the age of five, suffering from acute malnutrition – who have great need for humanitarian assistance.

At least 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence, according to data recently released by the UN's International Organization for Migration.

“The conflict in Sudan has become one of the biggest displacement crises in the world,” Alyona Synenko, spokeswoman for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Arab News in Nairobi.

“We are talking about a quarter of the country's population who fled their homes. People lost their homes and lost access to essential means of survival.”

The displacement of farmers, in particular, has led to the collapse of Sudan's agricultural sector, exacerbating food insecurity. “Food production has suffered enormously and we are witnessing a worsening of the food crisis,” Synenko said.

“We have hundreds of people calling us, desperate, because they don't know what happened to their loved ones. We have more and more families who are separated and have lost any means of contacting each other.”

In the first half of 2024, the ICRC worked in partnership with the Sudanese Red Crescent to provide emergency assistance and essential services. However, his efforts have been frustrated by the security situation, administrative challenges and difficulties in accessing communities.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan's restive Darfur region, where allegations of ethnic cleansing and attacks on hospitals have emerged.

“We saw total devastation throughout the city of Nyala, which was the second most populated city in Sudan,” said MSF's McNally.

“The entire northern half of the city is almost completely destroyed. You see a complete lack of basic services anywhere. There has been virtually no international humanitarian response in this part of the country.

“You really see people struggling. You have the residents who are left and then you also have IDP camps in the surrounding area with hundreds of thousands of people. You see a lot of people who are incredibly desperate and very little assistance is getting to them at the moment.”

According to Abubakr, Sudanese civilians are suffering particularly badly in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. The paramilitary group now controls most of Khartoum, Al-Jazirah, Kordofan and the vast western region of Darfur.

Of particular concern are reports of sexual and gender-based violence emerging from across the country, but particularly from Darfur.

An MSF survey of 135 survivors of sexual violence treated in refugee camps in Chad by MSF teams between July and December 2023 found that 90% had been abused by an armed perpetrator. Fifty percent were abused in their own home and 40 percent were raped by multiple attackers.

Abubakr recalls feeling haunted by the sight of his neighbors in Khartoum abandoning their homes – leaving behind places and possessions that were integral to their identity, not knowing if they would ever return. He never thought that he too would run away from his hometown.

Now, all that remains are the memories and photos of a home that he hopes to reclaim one day.

“I see that a person does not live in the place where the place lives in him,” said Abubakr. “The images and scenes in my house never left my mind. I wish to return to it again.”