Sudan: Salesian Sisters care for wounded & displaced

THE Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco in Sudan run a primary school with 840 children. However, because of the conflict, there have been no classes since April 15. For now, the sisters run a small dispensary that functions as a first aid room for the children and others injured by the fighting.

The sisters say they "have nothing special to help the wounded with" and are forced to use an over-the-counter antiseptic and disinfectant to clean wounds. They occasionally administer antibiotics. 

Most clinics and hospitals have been forced to close, and humanitarian assistance such as medications and food are often looted while access to affected areas has at times been restricted, according to MSF. Read more.

Report at National Catholic Reporter Online - ncronline.org
By Tawanda Karombo in Harare, Zimbabwe
View Author Profile
Published Thursday 29 June 2023 - here is a full copy:

Remaining Salesian Sisters brave Sudan war to care for wounded and displaced

People board a truck as they leave Khartoum, Sudan, on June 19. Clashes resumed between Sudan's military and a powerful paramilitary force after a three-day cease-fire expired June 21. (AP, file)

Sr. Teresa Roszkowska remembers May 24 — the worst day in her 44 years as a Salesian Sister of Don Bosco living in Sudan — with a sense of trepidation, fear and insecurity. 

On this day, Roszkowska and three others of her order were saying the rosary inside the dining room at their house 20 kilometers outside the capital city of Khartoum when "heavy and horrible shootings" broke out. It was not for the first time, nor would it be the last.

Despite ceasefire agreements between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the two warring parties at the center of the civil conflict have been plaguing Sudan since April 15. 

Sudan fell into the hands of military control in 2021 after Omar Ahmad al-Bashir was thrown out of power in a coup in 2019. 

The military-controlled government has now fractured, leading to the outbreak of war as they fight for control of power.

The SAF and RSF have been dueling, with intense fighting on the streets of Darfur and Khartoum, affecting ordinary citizens, destroying infrastructure and halting school and church activities, as well as shutting down about 11 hospitals. The war has plunged the country into a crisis, leaving 600 people dead and 1 million others displaced from their homes, many of them fleeing into neighboring countries.

'There are days when we are full of abnormally fearful silence and all we do is just pray, and hope that God will touch those hearts of stone.'

—Salesian Sr. Teresa Roszkowska

Roszkowska, who is from Poland and arrived in Sudan on Jan. 24, 1989, has been witnessing the impact of the war on ordinary Sudanese people firsthand. She has had to stand steadfast amid the gloom of war at a time when other religious have been forced to flee.

On May 24, "we could not hear each other because of the noise from the shootings," she said. She added that, "in fear, some lay on the floor, feeling like it was the end" of the world. 

"We decided to run to the chapel for safety but that is the moment that the scared and wounded people from the shootings started to arrive at our house. As I ran towards the gate to open it, I really felt like it was the end of the world because of the sight of scared people running towards the house," Roszkowska told Global Sisters Report in an interview.

Her fear comes not out of her own vulnerability but out of care and worry for the situation that the war-ravaged citizens and children of Sudan have found themselves in, she said. 

There has been no real abatement to the crisis as the war rages on, disrupting telecom services and electricity supplies for lengthy periods. In fact, says Roszkowska, in mid-June the situation was "still worse" as several gunmen exchanged fire and shot wantonly into places where civilians were.

"The house was full of people as they were exchanging shooting and many more poor people, some with their children, were arriving wounded. Actually, one of the soldiers was the one bringing many of them from the shacks around our area. 

"There has been no day without these kinds of shootings and we are actually starting to get used to the sounds."

The Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco in Sudan say they "have nothing special to help the wounded with" and are forced to use an over-the-counter antiseptic and disinfectant to clean wounds. They occasionally administer antibiotics.

Most clinics and hospitals have been forced to close, and humanitarian assistance such as medications and food are often looted while access to affected areas has at times been restricted, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.

"After the looting of one of our medical warehouses in Khartoum, fridges were unplugged and medicines removed. The entire cold chain was ruined so the medicines are spoiled and can't be used to treat anyone," said Jean-Nicolas Armstrong Dangelser, emergency coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières in Sudan. 

Religious flee Sudan war

Over the years, a strong community of international Catholic sisters and other religious has been active in Sudan. According to Roszkowska, there have been many Catholic sisters from as far as India, El Salvador, Vietnam, South Sudan and Poland.

However, after the latest war erupted in April, only four Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco remain in Sudan. Global Sisters Report recently reported on Sr. Angelina Ebrahim Trilly Koko of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd saying that her congregation had already shut down several schools and hospitals serving thousands of residents and stopped pastoral work. 

On April 30, Archbishop Michael Didi Adgum Mangoria of Khartoum confirmed that "many people, including priests and nuns, have fled the most contested areas" of Sudan since April 15.

A man walks by a house hit in fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum, Sudan, on April 25. (AP/Marwan Ali)

Amid this situation, Roszkowska and the other three remaining Salesian Don Bosco Sisters continue to assist those affected by the war in Sudan. Roszkowska says the sisters are "living and working among poor people living round our house in shacks and tents," after being displaced from their homes.

The Don Bosco Sisters run a primary school with 840 children. However, because of the war, there have been no classes since April 15. For now, the sisters run a small dispensary that functions as a first aid room for the children and others injured by the war.

Before the war, the sisters assisted women in learning to be self-reliant through courses such as pasta and bread-making, as well as baking biscuits and dressmaking. But the courses cannot be conducted now because the beneficiaries are constantly on the move, fleeing the war.

"True and deep love for the people to whom I am sent is keeping me going and I feel this strength is from God as a religious mission," Roszkowska said. "By being with the people of Sudan, all their troubles and suffering are mine too; when they cry, I cry with them."

At present, the Don Bosco Salesian Sisters of Sudan are providing shelter and food to some of those affected by the war, Christians and Muslims, and helping to save them from "bullets and senseless" fighting.

Smoke rises over Khartoum, Sudan, June 7, as fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continues. (AP)

"Daily about 100-140 children and mothers, sick, old, wounded are staying with us and they also get food here too," Roszkowska said. "Other pastoral programs are not possible at all. Every evening, we say the rosary with all the children and mothers in our house."

What is further compounding the situation for the Don Bosco Sisters of Sudan is that "there are not any agencies working or collaborating" with them. Being aged above 60 "and not in good health," the four Salesian Sisters have however resumed Mass which they have not had for more than a month.

'Hope for the better'

Very often, especially when the shootings are nearby, it is easy to feel hopeless, explained Roszkowska. However, greater hope for a better and peaceful Sudan gives the sisters the divine urge and unexplainable power to soldier on with the work of assisting the people.

"Yes, very often we feel hopeless, and more so at this current time we are in now," she said. "We just live as best as we can, knowing that we only have today to live as tomorrow may not be ours. But deep down, we have this overwhelming hope for the better."

In this sudden and horrible situation, there is nothing special to be happy about, Roszkowska said.

After the sisters' courage and decision at the beginning of the war to "open our home for whoever needs shelter and food," the house started to fill up with "children and poor people day and night." Seeing these people have access to food and shelter, their hearts were filled with "immense, unspoken deep joy" until now. 

Yet amid the turmoil, senseless destruction of property and shootings, displacement of innocent civilians and killings, the Salesian Sisters' optimism is tinged with a sense of uncertainty for the future. 

Their only faith that the situation will turn around for the better is in God's ability to turn the hearts of steel and bullets of those at the center of the conflict into hearts of peace.

"We can't imagine what 'they' are planning to do next, or which ways they want to pursue to stop this senseless war," Roszkowska said. "There are days when we are full of abnormally fearful silence and all we do is just pray, and hope that God will touch those hearts of stone, change their minds and that the situation will be better."

This story appears in the Hope Amid Turmoil: Sisters in Conflict Areas feature series. View the full series.

View original: https://www.ncronline.org/news/remaining-salesian-sisters-brave-sudan-war-care-wounded-and-displaced

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Sudan: Towards intervention?

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Although some parts of this article are inaccurate and misleading, particularly about ICC v Bashir (no time to correct it) it is documented here to lay the groundwork for understanding future posts regarding the birth of Sudan's civilian-led government.   

Article at Al-Ahram online

Written by Asmaa Al-Husseini 
Published Tuesday 04 July 2023 - here is a full copy:

Sudan: Towards intervention?

As Sudan’s warring parties refuse to compromise foreign intervention looms ever closer, writes Asmaa Al-Husseini

The Sudan war has been raging for three months with no realistic prospects for a peaceful resolution. Initiatives to halt the bloodshed have all failed and the warring sides - the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - continue to target civilians who are subjected to air strikes, looting, sabotage, and intimidation, circumstances that have created an opening for international and regional intervention.

 

In recent weeks, the international community has indicated it is unwilling to remain a passive spectator as the conflict in Sudan not only continues but expands. Several international and regional players have hinted that they may resort to more stringent measures to halt the fighting which has spread to Kordofan, Darfur, and other regions, and assumed a growing ethnic and tribal dimension.

 

There are growing fears the conflict may become a civil or regional war, and in recent weeks Darfur has witnessed horrific atrocities which some international officials classify as war crimes.

 

Sudanese officials have called for the intervention of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a commission to investigate these crimes. Mona Arko Minawi, the governor of Darfur, Darfur lawyers, and other groups have described events in the western region as genocide.

 

The atrocities, taking place away from media coverage amid the interruption of essential services and communication, evoke memories of the war in Darfur between 2003 and 2018 which resulted in the ICC indicting president Omar Al-Bashir and other regime leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. They resulted in Sudan being subject to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, allowing UN and African forces to be deployed to the region.

 

The SAF and RSF have turned down several ceasefires proposed in Jeddah by the US and Saudi Arabia as well as initiatives put forward by the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

 

The SAF rejected AU mediation on the grounds that the organisation had suspended Sudan’s membership following what it deemed a coup when, on 25 October 2021, the army dissolved its partnership with civilian forces. The SAF has also declined IGAD mediation, claiming that Kenya, the leader of the initiative, has sided with the RSF, providing its members with shelter. The army has said statements by Kenyan President William Ruto and his foreign minister constitute interference in Sudan’s internal affairs and undermine its sovereignty and requested that South Sudan take the lead in the Quartet for mediation, replacing Kenya.

 

The IGAD initiative had proposed a direct meeting between SAF leader Abdel-Fattah Al-Borhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) in an attempt to forge a lasting solution to the crisis. The initiative also recommended a dialogue between Sudan’s civil forces and the opening of humanitarian corridors.

 

Malik Agar, the new deputy head of the Sovereignty Council, has visited several regional countries as well as Moscow, seeking assistance and mediation. The move may be interpreted as an attempt to alleviate US, European, African, and Saudi pressures, though the step is unlikely to achieve the changes desired by the Sudanese army.

 

The army is perturbed that the RSF is being treated as an equal partner in the proposed initiatives. The SAF describes the RSF as a rebel force and as the vanguard of a foreign invasion, alluding to the RSF’s use of fighters from neighbouring African countries.

 

The SAF has welcomed Turkey’s involvement in mediation efforts. Media outlets aligned with the army have expressed optimism that Turkey will provide support, just as it did to the Libyan government in Tripoli.

 

During its latest session, the African Peace and Security Council endorsed the IGAD initiative. IGAD’s plan calls for the demilitarisation of Khartoum, an unconditional cessation of hostilities and the initiation of a comprehensive political process. While stressing that a political solution is the only exit from the current impasse, the 15-member-State Council warned that violators of international human rights laws in Sudan would be held accountable for their actions.

 

IGAD has proposed a 50 km buffer zone around Khartoum and the deployment of African forces to safeguard key institutions in the capital, with the police and security forces responsible for securing key public facilities. Agar dismissed the proposals as an occupation rather than a solution to the crisis. He emphasised his government’s opposition to any initiative that does not respect Sudanese sovereignty.

 

Following SAF and RSF responses to the Jeddah initiative, the US has indicated it will adopt stricter measures to stop the war in Sudan. The European Union is also speaking about imposing sanctions against parties involved in the conflict.

 

Some observers anticipate international intervention — involving a collaboration between Western powers, the African Union, and IGAD — under Chapter VII if the warring factions do not heed calls for peace. Others believe Russia and China may veto such intervention unless it is mediated by the African Union given that the Sudan war threatens regional security and international interests, including those of Moscow and Beijing.

 

Meanwhile, Sudan’s civil forces are busy holding meetings of their own to launch initiatives and form a unified civil front to end the war and restore the country to a democratic course.

 

Al-Baqir Al-Afif, a Sudanese writer and representative of the Civil Front to Stop the War and Restore Democracy, told Al-Ahram Weekly a unified front could help fill the void and prevent armed groups from determining Sudan’s future in the absence of a strong civil force. To this end, steps are being taken to convene a meeting that includes political parties, trade unions, professional federations, resistance committees, civil society organisations and public figures in Sudan with the goal of agreeing a declaration of principles.

 

“There are proposals to create a representative committee to join international initiatives aimed at ending the war and kickstarting the political track. Some have suggested the formation of a shadow government or a government in exile,” he said.

 

“Having a group representing the civilian voice in Sudan is crucial. It will help convey the Sudanese people’s point of view to the world and be part of these international initiatives, which must also be unified.”

 

The priority is to end the war and the bloodshed and brutal massacres in Khartoum and Darfur, added Al-Afif. Regional and international communities should collaborate to exert pressure to stop the conflict and establish mechanisms to effectively monitor the ceasefire. It is also essential to provide urgent relief to those affected by the war, including displaced persons, refugees and those stranded at crossings.

 

It is also essential to engage civilians in future peace negotiations to ensure a democratic transition led by civil forces, he said.

 

Major General Kamal Ismail, head of the Sudanese National Alliance and leader of the Forces for Freedom and Change, told the Weekly meetings to unify Sudan’s civil forces have already taken place in an attempt to restore stability and advance a democratic civil path.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 July, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

View original:  https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/504119.aspx

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Sudan: Only a united civilian coalition can bring peace

Article at World Politics Review - worldpoliticsreview.com
Written by Yasir Zaidan 
Published Thursday 22 June 2023 - here is a full copy:

Only a United Civilian Coalition Can Bring Peace to Sudan

People chant slogans during a protest in Khartoum, Sudan, Oct. 30, 2021 (AP photo by Marwan Ali).

The current conflict in Sudan between the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group is a security and humanitarian crisis. But more importantly, it is a political crisis, one that grows out of the failure to build a sustainable democratic transition after the popular uprising that removed former dictator Omar al-Bashir from power in April 2019.

That failure can be traced through the various transitional deals that have been signed and then either ignored or violated since 2019. In that time, the civilian political actors in Sudan’s transition have been unable to overcome their deep divisions, giving free rein to the armed forces under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—known as Hemedti—to seize and now compete for control of the country. Tragically, the same thing is recurring now, meaning that when the guns are finally silenced, Sudan’s civilian political actors will be unable to play a meaningful role in steering the country to a sustainable peace.

Sudan’s first transitional agreement was a power-sharing constitutional declaration between the military and the Forces of Freedom and Change, or FFC, the civilian alliance that led the negotiations with the army after the removal of Bashir’s regime. The declaration laid the groundwork for the formation of a joint military-civilian government whose goal was to ultimately guide Sudan back to civilian rule by 2022. But it failed to achieve the uprisings’ demands because of political disputes between rival groups among the civilian participants.

The FFC represented a broad range of political parties that opposed the Bashir regime as well as rebel groups from Darfur, Blue Nile and Southern Kurdufan. That and its unity gave it a powerful position in leading the uprising that erupted in December 2018 and negotiating with the Transitional Military Council, TMC, once Bashir was deposed. However, differences started to emerge between the FFC’s civilian members and the rebel groups, who criticized the Khartoum-based FFC parties’ decision to begin talks with the TMC before the rebels were able to participate.

After signing a peace agreement with the transitional government in October 2020, representatives of the rebel movements were able to return to Khartoum, where they were incorporated into the transitional governing institutions as political actors. But the distrust that was created within the FFC only increased, due to serious concerns among the rebel groups over how the structures of the power-sharing government benefited the group of parties that negotiated the transitional agreement with the military.

As a result, the FFC split into two factions. The first, known as the FFC-Central Committee, or FFC-CC, compromises the Umma Party, the Unionist Assembly and the Sudanese Congress. The second faction, which included the rebel groups and the Unionist Party, called itself the FFC-Democratic Bloc, or FFC-DB. In addition, the Baathists and communists left the coalition entirely and created a new front called the Radical Alliance. The resulting political disputes combined with the country’s economic deterioration opened the door for the military takeover in October 2021.

Instead of finding a common position to propose a political roadmap out of the current crisis, Sudan’s civilian actors are busy repeating their previous mistakes.

These divisions were exploited and leveraged by Hemedti, who has proved to be a skillful political operator. Hemedti initially sought to inherit Bashir’s political machine, appointing many Bashir loyalists as advisers during the first months of the transition. He also sought the backing of Sudan’s tribal chiefs and traditional institutions by showering them with gifts and financial favors.

But after the military takeover in 2021, Hemedti also sought to mend fences with civilian actors by publicly apologizing for supporting the coup in the months that followed. He subsequently moved closer to the FFC-CC and eventually became an ally. In September 2022, he announced his support for the interim constitutional draft proposed by the FFC-CC to guide the country back to civilian rule, putting him at odds with the armed forces’ position of supporting only initiatives that included all political stakeholders in Sudan and not only the FFC-CC.

Meanwhile, the United Nations-led political process to facilitate talks between the FCC-CC, FCC-DB and the military initiated after the October 2021 military takeover further exacerbated the divisions among Sudan’s civilian factions. The U.N. Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, or UNITAMS, deliberately designed the talks to exclude other important civilian actors, such as the Resistance Committees—the neighborhood groups that have led Sudan’s pro-democracy movement since 2019—and traditional tribal chiefs, and sidelined the FFC-DB from the outline agreement signed in December 2022.

That agreement ultimately served as the catalyst for the current conflict, because it called for integrating the RSF into the Sudanese armed forces, which has been a critical national security fault line ever since the 2019 uprising. Created during the Bashir regime’s war in Darfur, the RSF subsequently maneuvered between several institutional umbrellas. After the war in Darfur subsided in intensity, Bashir used the RSF to protect against potential military coups by the armed forces. Hemedti used that privileged status to gain control of lucrative commercial interests, including gold mines, front companies and banks. After Bashir’s ouster, the RSF further expanded militarily and financially.

The disagreement over the timeline for integrating the RSF into the armed forces—the military proposed a two-year transition, while Hemedti argued the process should take at least 10 years—intensified pre-existing tensions between the two sides as the deadline for signing the finalized UNITAMS-brokered agreement approached. Soon after the deadline was postponed in April, both forces mobilized their troops in Khartoum, with the fighting beginning on April 15.

But if Hemedti sought to leverage the FFC-CC in his rivalry with al-Burhan in the run-up to the conflict, the FFC-CC had similarly aligned with the RSF in an effort to play the different armed services against each other. In September 2022, for instance, Yasir Arman, an FFC-CC leadership council member, said that “the RSF represents a force to build the national army,” giving the RSF equal institutional status as the armed forces. And since the outbreak of war, the FFC-CC has refused to denounce Hemedti’s move to seize power.

There is now an urgent need to stop the war, which has left at least 900 civilians killed and 1.3 million displaced and risks triggering a regional conflagration. So far, talks between the armed forces and RSF hosted by Saudi Arabia have struggled to achieve more than shaky cease-fires and intermittent humanitarian access. In the meantime, instead of finding a common position to propose a political roadmap out of the current crisis, Sudan’s civilian actors are busy repeating the same mistakes. Several Resistance Committees have announced their withdrawal from the FFC-CC-led Civilian Coalition to Stop the War due to the FFC-CC’s neutral stance in the war as well as its narrative equating the RSF with the armed forces.  

Above all, Sudan urgently needs a new broad national front to correct the errors—in particular, the narrow and divisive political process—that led to the war. To be effective, however, any new political alliance should stand with Sudan’s remaining state institutions and insist that ultimately Sudan’s civilians must decide the fate of their country, for only that will sustainably end the war.

Yasir Zaidan is a doctoral candidate at the Jackson School for International Studies at the University of Washington.

View original: https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/conflict-sudan-crisis-civil-war-democracy-rapid-support-forces/

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Sudan: UAE President, Chad leader exchange agreements and MoUs. Emiratis assist RSF via Chad

Hell's bells, looks like Sudan crisis has changed from a conflict to war. Too fatigued to manually print this tweet. Note, Hemeti was born in Chad. Is he alive, why's no-one asking? Hat tip+thanks to Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc. 

This reflects a major strategic shift in the war in #Sudan as it clearly implies that the Emiratis are funneling assistance to the RSF via Chad with the express support of the Chadian government— a deal that was struck when Debbie visited Abu Dhabi last month. Major implications. https://t.co/9Tr9yqi2e4

— Cameron Hudson (@_hudsonc) July 3, 2023

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____________________

Post script from Sudan Watch Editor

This report from Gulf Today relates to the visit referred to in tweet above.
Published 15 June 2023 - here is a full copy:

UAE President, Chad interim leader witness exchange of agreements and MoUs

Image: Sheikh Mohamed and Mahamat Idriss Deby during the ceremony at 

Al Shati Palace, Abu Dhabi, on Wednesday. WAM

President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Chad's interim president, Mahamat Idriss Deby, have witnessed the exchange of a number of agreements and memoranda of understanding between the UAE and Chad in various fields aimed at advancing bilateral cooperation.

Image: Sheikh Mohamed and Mahamat Idriss Deby during the ceremony at 

Al Shati Palace, Abu Dhabi, on Wednesday. WAM

The agreements and MoUs - which were signed at Al Shati Palace - included the following:

— A Memorandum of Understanding in the field of military cooperation signed by Mohammed Bin Ahmed Al Bowardi, Minister of State for Defence Affairs, on behalf of the UAE, and Lieutenant General Daoud Yahya, Minister of Defence, on behalf of Chad.

— A Loan Agreement between the Republic of Chad and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, signed by Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director-General of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, on behalf of the UAE, and Moussa Batraki, Chad’s Minister of Economy, Development Planning and International Cooperation.

— A Memorandum of Understanding in the field of energy signed by Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, on behalf of the UAE, and Djerassem le Bemadjiel, Chad’s Minister of Petroleum and Energy.

— A Memorandum of Understanding in the field of mining signed by Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, on behalf of the UAE, and Abdelkerim Mahamat Abdelkerim, Minister of Mines and Geology, on behalf of Chad.

The ceremony of exchanging MoUs and agreements was attended by His Highness Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Presidential Court; Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Special Affairs Advisor at the Presidential Court; and Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of State.

WAM

View original: https://www.gulftoday.ae/news/2023/06/14/uae-president-chad-interim-leader-witness-exchange-of-agreements-and-mous

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Sudan: Thanasis Pagoulatos ran Khartoum's historic Acropole Hotel. Then he had to leave it all behind

THANASIS PAGOULATOS led his family business, Khartoum’s oldest inn, through decades of tumult. Sudan's latest breakdown proved too much. One of the few items he took when he fled Sudan in April was a note handwritten by Mother Teresa, after she stayed at the hotel. It says "God is love and he loves you. Love others as God loves you. God bless you." Read more.

Article at The New York Times
By Matina Stevis-Gridneff
Matina Stevis-Gridneff, a former guest at Khartoum’s Acropole Hotel, traveled to Athens to interview Thanasis Pagoulatos after his evacuation.
Published 16 June 2023 - here is a full copy:

He Ran Sudan’s Most Storied Hotel. Then He Had to Leave Everything Behind.

Thanasis Pagoulatos led the family business, Khartoum’s oldest inn, through decades of tumult. Sudan’s latest breakdown proved too much.

Image: Thanasis Pagoulatos, whose family built up the historic Acropole Hotel in Khartoum, was forced to evacuate Sudan in April. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

Even as fighter jets tore through Khartoum’s skies in April and the streets became a dystopian war zone amid a showdown between rival Sudanese fighters, Thanasis Pagoulatos had no intention of fleeing.

Born 79 years ago to a Greek immigrant father and a mother from Egypt’s Greek diaspora, Mr. Pagoulatos had really known only one home: Sudan.

That’s where his family had put down deep roots, growing a business, the Acropole Hotel, that flourished through decades of near-constant upheaval. They were part of a thousands-strong Greek community that became integrated into Sudan and stayed on after the country’s independence from British colonial rule in 1956.

Through it all, life in that vast land  went on — and so did the Acropole.

Housed in an inconspicuous mustard-colored building in downtown Khartoum, the hotel teemed with archaeologists, journalists, humanitarians and adventurous travelers.

Image: The Acropole Hotel in Khartoum, in late April. Credit...Pavlos Pagoulatos, via Reuters

The Pagoulatos father, Panaghis, opened it in 1952, after arriving in Sudan seeking a better life as his native Greek island of Cephalonia lay in the ruins of the Second World War.

But the elder Pagoulatos died suddenly, leaving the hotel and other businesses in the hands of his powerhouse wife, Flora, and their three sons, Thanasis, 19 at the time, and the younger George and Makis.

The brothers, under the guidance of their mother, focused on family hospitality rather than luxury, and established the Acropole Hotel as a vital node in Sudan’s interactions with the outside world.

While offering basic accommodation — pristine but bare rooms, three square meals, consistent air-conditioning in temperatures regularly soaring over 100 degrees Fahrenheit — the family made the place a home. Guests flocked and returned, spurning fancier, bigger hotels.

Flora Pagoulatos died in 2010, but Mr. Pagoulatos and his brothers, their wives and later their children continued to run the hotel. Regular guests remembered each brother’s unique personality.

George, the middle one, was charming and discreet, an unflappable problem-solver. Makis, the youngest, was energetic and steadfast, and when Greece shut down its embassy in 2015, he became honorary consul, and the Acropole, the consulate. Thanasis was gentle and meticulous, paying attention to detail.

In his eight decades in Khartoum, Thanasis Pagoulatos — a tall man with soft white hair, blue eyes and a gentle voice — saw it all: coups (nearly a dozen), wars (civil, and with neighbors), famines (two).

In May 1988, he was in the hotel when a terrorist detonated a bomb, killing seven guests. With his brothers, he moved the whole business to the hotel’s annex across the street and carried on.

Image: Photographs of the original site of the Acropole Hotel, after it was bombed in May 1988. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

When, in mid-April, heavy fighting broke out between the country’s army and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Mr. Pagoulatos cooped up in the hotel with his sister-in-law Eleonora, three staff members and four guests, and waited. Makis was in Greece at the time, and the hotel’s 50 rooms were mostly unoccupied, in part because of security concerns.

“We thought, ‘It will pass, it always does,’” he said in a recent interview in Athens, where he reluctantly evacuated to join the rest of his family.

Losing his beloved brother George, Eleonora’s husband, months earlier had already made this a terrible period for the Pagoulatoses. How much worse could it possibly get? It turned out, quite a lot.

For the first few days of the fighting, encouraged by Mr. Pagoulatos, the group — one Sudanese and two Philippine staff members, two German tourists, and a Brazilian and an Italian archaeologist — stayed calm.

They had no running water or electricity, but the kitchen had a basic stock of food and drinking water. Mr. Pagoulatos couldn’t fully fathom the chaos that was spreading across his beloved city, but he did know that it was at his doorstep.

Image: Khartoum at the beginning of May. Credit...Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Fighters would barge in demanding food or drinks and Mr. Pagoulatos obliged, to keep the group safe. At night, he recalled with terror, men rattled the padlocked front door.

Responsibility for his guests and staff weighed on him. “I felt that these people stayed with us, and through no fault of their own, they were in this situation,” he said. “Who would look after them? It had to be us.”

As civilians in Khartoum desperately sought help, and embassies rushed to get their staffs out, a small global tribe connected by the Acropole scrambled for news of Mr. Pagoulatos.

Central to that was Roman Deckert, a German researcher who first stayed at the hotel in 1997 and returned over the years, developing a bond with the family and recording their history.

Throughout their childhood in Khartoum, the Pagoulatos brothers often visited their father’s ancestral land in Greece. But Mr. Pagoulatos said he always yearned to return to Sudan. When he and his brothers were grown and married, they all lived near the hotel in the same building, and their children were raised like siblings, not cousins.

Mr. Pagoulatos was raised speaking Greek, Arabic and English. But he also picked up French and Italian, which came in handy at the hotel because over the decades, the family’s worldliness and interest in culture made the Acropole a hub and a symbol of Sudan’s cosmopolitanism. Before the application of Islamic law, the hotel held regular music events, and film nights on its breezy terrace.

“They made it easy for Westerners and other Africans to fall in love with Sudan and the Sudanese,” Mr. Deckert said. “They played a huge role in relaying a brighter side of Sudan to the world.”

Image: Mr. Pagoulatos and his brothers, as well as their wives and later their children, made the hotel a home. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

For travelers like Dale Raven North, a Canadian lawyer who stayed at the Acropole last November, Mr. Pagoulatos and his family offered a haven. “It ended up being, I think, my favorite place I have ever stayed because of the Pagoulatos family and the environment they created,” she said.

For international correspondents, the Acropole was a home. Lindsey Hilsum, the British broadcaster, said in an interview from eastern Ukraine that she stayed at the Acropole during the 1980s, drawn by reasonable rates, safety and a telex machine that correspondents fought over to file dispatches.

For archaeologists, Mr. Pagoulatos and his brothers created a launchpad for decades of expeditions that uncovered treasures and secrets of the evolution of mankind.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly none of the foreign archaeological projects in Sudan would have functioned without them,” said the Munich-based archaeologist Kate Rose.

Image: A handwritten note left by Mother Teresa after she stayed at the hotel. It was one of the few items Mr. Pagoulatos managed to take with him when he fled Sudan. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

After 10 days holed up in the Acropole, Mr. Pagoulatos and the others with him were out of food and water. Through a contact at the Italian Embassy, they had been put on an evacuation list, and he got permission from the militiamen to set out on foot into the heat and dust of a devastated Khartoum. The group of nine walked past decomposing bodies, slowly taking in the full scale of the calamity.

Along the way, an elderly Sudanese man — “an angel,” Mr. Pagoulatos said — invited them into his home. The next morning, he found them a car to take them to an evacuation assembly point.

Mr. Pagoulatos and his sister-in-law were flown by the French military to neighboring Djibouti. Since they reached Athens, Mr. Pagoulatos, still shaken and emotional, has been feeling relief, but also a desire to go home to Khartoum.

“We left behind an icon of Jesus that survived the 1988 terrorist attack, and the big collage that the nongovernmental organizations gave us for our help during the famine,” Mr. Pagoulatos said.

“We need to get them,” he said. “We just thought we’d help the guests leave and go back to work two or three days later.”

A correction was made on June 16, 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated the year that Sudan gained independence from Britain and the year that the Acropole opened. Sudan gained independence in 1956, and the hotel opened in 1952, not the other way around.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff is the Brussels bureau chief, leading coverage of the European Union. She joined The Times in 2019. @MatinaStevis

A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2023, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Lifetime of Hospitality, Disrupted by War in Sudan. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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Sudan: Measles in Khartoum and White Nile State

Report at BBC News Live Reporting - bbc.com/africalive
By BBC Arabic's Sudan Lifeline radio
Additional reporting by Will Ross
Published Monday 03 July 2023, 13:17 BST - here is a full copy:

Sudan doctor warns of rise in measles cases amid conflict

There has been a rise in the number of measles cases in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, because the ongoing conflict is preventing vaccinations, a paediatrician has told the BBC.

Speaking to the Sudan Lifeline programme, Dr Mohamed al-Taher, who is based in Khartoum, said there was a shortage of vaccines, which could lead to the outbreak of diseases among children.

"Vaccination is the responsibility of the ministry of health, yet the ministry cannot carry out its role as regards the vaccination process," he said..

"There is a shortage in the measles vaccine and a number of cases have already occurred among children and they are expected to be very severe... it will be very severe because their bodies will not be resisting it."

With frequent aerial bombardment and clashes in densely populated urban areas, it's extremely dangerous to try to reach clinics.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has warned that as people flee their homes there are increasing cases of measles and malnutrition in camps in White Nile state, south of the capital. 

MSF says communities have reported a rise in child mortality much of it due to suspected cases of measles. 

Image caption: The fighting between the army and the RSF militia began in April

Click here to view original.

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Related reports

Sudan Watch - Monday, June 26, 2023

South Sudan: Measles outbreak in Unity State

Click here to check if you or your child has measles

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/06/south-sudan-measles-outbreak-in-unity.html

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Sudan Watch - Saturday, July 01, 2023

South Sudan: Unity State launch measles vaccination

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/05/south-sudan-unity-state-launch-measles.html

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Sudan Watch - Sunday, July 02, 2023

Sudan: Vaccine hero on front lines uses auto rickshaw

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/06/sudan-vaccine-hero-on-front-lines-uses.html

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Sudan: Malik Agar visits Russia to discuss Sudan crisis

NOTE from Sudan Watch Ed: Further to the previous post at Sudan Watch (Mon 03 Jul 2023 - 'Sudan: Thousands of Sudanese citizens flee to Ethiopia as security deteriorates in Blue Nile') here is a thread of 7 tweets posted in Arabic Thu 29 Jun 2023 at the Twitter account of Malik Agar @MalikAgar1 “the official account of the President of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Vice President the Sudanese Sovereignty Council”.

This copy has been translated from Arabic using Google translate.

1/7

Today morning, June 29, I visited the Federal Republic of Russia, accompanied by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others. During the visit, I and my accompanying delegation, which also included the Sudanese Ambassador to Russia, held a session of talks in the premises of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Mr. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister.

11:10 PM · Jun 29, 2023 24.5K Views

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2/7

In addition to the Russian President's envoy to Africa and the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and a number of officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry, we discussed during the session developments in Sudan, where I provided a detailed explanation of the events in Sudan since the outbreak of the Rapid Support Forces rebellion on April 15.

11:11 PM · Jun 29, 2023 1,954 Views

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And its developments in field and humanitarian aspects, and its repercussions on Sudan and neighboring countries. During the session, the regional and international initiatives and efforts made to find solutions to the crisis and the position of the Government of Sudan on it were touched upon. We clarified Sudan's position on the UN mission and its head, and Sudan's adherence to its sovereign rights.

11:12 PM · Jun 29, 2023 1,192 Views

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And his duty is to defend its territorial integrity, security and stability, and the Russian side has understood Sudan's position towards the United Nations and its decision regarding the head of the UNTAMS mission.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, expressed the solidarity of the Government of the Russian Federation with the government and people of Sudan and its existing legitimate institutions.

11:14 PM · Jun 29, 2023 1,436 Views

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Stressing his follow-up to the developments of the situation in Sudan since its inception, he added that the crisis in Sudan is an internal matter and its solution is in the hands of the Sudanese themselves. Lavrov indicated the Russian government's readiness to support the Sudanese people whenever they are asked to do so.

11:15 PM · Jun 29, 2023 1,366 Views

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We also agreed with the Russian side to continue and strengthen bilateral relations in all fields and to activate this through the agreed upon bilateral mechanisms. We also renewed our commitment to coordination in international and regional forums. We also touched on developments in the Sudanese neighborhood and the regional situation.

11:17 PM · Jun 29, 2023 1,963 Views

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7/7

They stressed the importance of coordination and consultation between the two countries. During the talks, the Russian side expressed its aspiration for the President of the Sovereignty Council to participate in the Russian-African Summit, which will be held at the end of next July in St. Petersburg, Russia.

11:18 PM · Jun 29, 2023 1,797 Views

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View original*: https://twitter.com/MalikAgar1/status/1674540887651635200

*Only viewable to those with a registered account at Twitter.com

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