by Reem Abbas
-Sudan-

Sudanese contributor Reem Abbas reflects on the popular uprisings in several of the places she has called home. –Ed

My father came back from the supermarket armed with bags full of pasta, rice, flour, and canned products. He rushed there after hearing about protests in Benghazi. This was in mid-February, and the world was not yet aware of the events unfolding in Libya. My mother’s health was deteriorating and we were hoping for an immediate medical evacuation to the UK.

by Reem Abbas
-Sudan-

On January 9 citizens of South Sudan will begin voting in a week-long vote on whether they will secede from or remain united with the North. This referendum involves more than the yes or no vote. After decades of civil war, this referendum may have implications for people’s citizenship, safety, and the place they call home.

In 1995 Al–Jaaley arrived in Jabarona, an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on the outskirts of Omdurman, where hundreds of thousands of IDPs from the South, the Nuba Mountains, and, recently, Darfur live.

Jabarona literally means “we were forced” in Arabic. It began as a direct result of the massive displacement caused by the civil war raging in the South. Jabarona is one of four official camps in Khartoum.

by Reem Abbas
-Sudan-

I remember going to the most amazing engagement party in 2000. The young lady in question was the niece of my mother’s best friend. Their lovely house, her dress, and the food were all impressive, but not as much as the musician they hired.

He was an up-and-coming male pop singer with a feminine spirit and he specialized in what we call in Sudan aghani al-banat or girl’s songs. Aghani al-banat are popular songs written and performed by women. Before he became popular, it was unacceptable for men to sing aghani al-banat, but he took a huge risk and became very famous as a result.

The musician, commonly referred to as Gadora, was a dark-skinned, overweight young man. Years later, in 2006 to be exact, my aunt delivered the bad news. It was at my cousin’s tenth birthday and I was eating marzipan-loaded cake when she told me about his death.

by Reem Abbas
-Sudan-

I wait for her on Wednesdays. She comes in the afternoon and spends about two hours ironing my shirts, my grandmother’s dresses, and the bed sheets. I hand her a bucket of ice along with her money. They do not have a fridge and in the scorching heat of Sudan, cold water should not be a luxury. Her name is Fatima. She is a displaced woman from Darfur.

After the war broke out in 2003, many families in Darfur were forced to flee their towns and move to the national capital Khartoum and the surrounding cities. Hundreds of thousands moved north and became part of a sizable internally displaced persons (IDPs) population.

In early 2003 rebels from Darfur, in west Sudan, took up arms against the Sudanese government to protest decades of marginalization. Darfur, a region the size of France, was considered underdeveloped - even by Sudanese standards. The government’s reaction was brutal, and to combat the attacks by the two rebel groups - the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - they armed equally poor nomads from other tribes in the region. Plagued by drought and famine, igniting a civil war was simple.