Ahmed Badawi
If you are in Khartoum, you run. You run because all your neighbours are running.
“Khartoum” is made up of three cities – Khartoum itself, Bahari and Omdurman, separated by the river Nile. Those who are running come from all three.
On Monday morning we woke up to the news that there was a military coup. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan overthrew the civilian government of Abdalla Hamdok.
Now the running, the shouting and the shooting is everywhere. It is not the Army which is in the streets, those who shoot at you are “walad al-Gharb”, “those of the West”, those fellows from Darfur in Western Sudan who “keep order” in the name of their militia, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
At “their” home, in the West, they have long been known as “the Janjaweed”, the killers on horseback. Here they get off their horses, they wear uniforms and they ride brand new Emirati armoured vehicles.
But they still kill and the Army prefers using them to doing the dirty work themselves. The Westerners don’t like the Arabs of the Nile Valley and we don’t like the Westerners either.
Three years ago, when the revolution overthrew Omar al-Bashir, the Westerners killed hundreds of demonstrators, our friends and neighbours.
Now they are back at it, trying to bring back the Bashir gang. But in your heart of hearts, you know they don’t care about Bashir or the Islamists, they just care about food, dope and money.
Perhaps they also care about regaining control of Darfur when they go back home.
But in the meantime they want to control you and stop you from kicking out the men in uniform. This is what their guns are about.
So you run in the dust because you know they won’t have any qualms about shooting you. And it is hot in the noonday sun.
Image source: @jpmasenglish
