The old bus creaked as it dipped in and out of the decrepit road’s potholes. On one side, the flat, hot desert sands stretched as far as the horizon. On the other, the Red Sea Mountains rose in the distance. Dilapidated railway stations passed by every few kilometres.
Inside the bus were dozens of Sudanese travelling from Port Sudan to Atbara, recounting to one another the scenes of devastation they have fled and stories of a war that has no end in sight.
Every available space was filled with luggage and limbs, and over the rumble of the engine, tales of loss, looting and death tumbled out of people’s mouths.
Zuhair Osman, a thin 65-year-old man, sat in the middle of the bus. He and his family had fled their home in eastern Khartoum’s El-Mujahideen neighbourhood, a house Osman built after working for 20 years as an engineer in Bahrain.
A few days after leaving home, however, Osman’s family realised that in their hurry they had forgotten their IDs. Osman decided to go back to get them.
When he got there, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary soldiers were cooking in his kitchen.
“It was shocking to see them there. They had smashed down the doors, entered all the rooms, looked through our cupboards and scattered our clothes all over the floor. The house was very dirty,” he recalled to fellow passengers.
Though nothing had been stolen, the place was a tip.
“When I came in, they stopped me aggressively. I told them that I’m the owner and want to take some belongings and they allowed me to get in,” Osman added.
“They didn’t talk to me much, but they were behaving like the real owners of the house, which enraged me. But the weapons they were carrying made me hide my anger until I could get out of the house.”
