In the year since the Sudanese army recaptured the capital Khartoum from a paramilitary force that had seized it at the outset of civil war in 2023, more than two million of the five million people who fled their homes in the city have returned.
But although the authorities promised a quick restoration of normal life after their military victory, power is still mostly out, buildings remain damaged and workers are going unpaid. Some say they have come back only as a last resort, fleeing a crackdown on refugees in neighbouring Egypt.
The government, which had evacuated ministries and administrative offices to the coastal city of Port Sudan, has ordered civil servants to return to work in Khartoum.
Students, who had been offered classes online and permitted to take their exams at temporary centres in other cities or abroad, have been told to return to classrooms.
Nisreen Altayeb, who fled to Egypt with her family, decided to return after a crackdown on refugees there that began around the start of the year.
“We left Sudan in the first place because of the lack of security, but then we started finding the same thing. It wasn’t safe in Egypt,” Altayeb said.
When they heard that the situation in Sudan was improving, she and her family decided to return. She is trying to return to her work as a schoolteacher, but like many government employees, she has not been paid even her meager salary.
Signs of recovery have so far been concentrated in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city across the White Nile, where the army had maintained partial control. Khartoum proper, as well as Bahri city to the north, remain largely without electricity and other services.
The Rapid Support Forces has continued targeting power stations and military installations around Khartoum with drone strikes, hindering recovery.
–Reuters–
