Khartoum- The war in the war Sudan On April 15, 2023, the journalist Abu Ubaida Abdullah found himself without work, so he moved between professions that he does not master, such as trade and communications, and finally a driver wandering between the states on his car.
Abdullah – who was the editor -in -chief of the “The Next Day” newspaper – says that after the outbreak of the war, all press institutions and the presses that were stationed in the middle stopped KhartoumAnd he remained in the capital for a month, then packed his luggage and left towards the city of Abyad in the state of North Kordofan region His hometown.
The first crisis he faced there was the search for an income source in which his family was counting, so he initially worked in distributing soft drinks, but he did not achieve this new profession, so he moved to the distribution of bags for commercial stores that reached Al -Abyad from a city Civil friend Central Sudan, but the work stopped after an invasion Rapid support forces Al Jazeera State and Wad Madani on December 19, 2023.
Profits and losses
Abu Ubaidah, 40, and his siblings, rented a commercial store in the Al -Abyad market and opened a “supermarket”. They managed to achieve good profits, but the expenses were more than the return, so the shop stumbled and was closed.
After that, he bought the “Starlink” for the distribution of the Internet, and he continued to work for a period of 4 months and achieved good profits that enabled him to provide the needs of his family, but the project stopped after the telecommunications network returned to the city of Abyad.
There is no choice after the siege of the city was left except to return to Khartoum after it was restored before Sudanese army And work in his car, which he left in a safe area in a city OmdurmanAnd he is currently a professional driver traveling in his car between the cities of the north of the country (Shendi, Atbara, Marwa, and Dongola).
Abu Ubaidah expresses his deep regret because the publishers and owners of the newspapers “did not pay their employees the slightest interest since the outbreak of the war, so they left them facing their fate alone and did not provide them with any assistance or alternatives.”
Challenges
In turn, Othman Sayed Ahmed, 56, who is a maintenance engineer at Dal Food Company, is married and a father of 8 children – that the day of the war will remain stuck in his memory, after staying for about 45 days in Khartoum, he decided to leave for Al Jazeera State They settled in the village of “translation” and they merged with its people quickly.
Othman and his sons searched for work for days, and they found one on a farm that gave them a good amount of money in observance of the circumstances of their displacement (40 thousand Sudanese pounds, that is, less than 20 dollars).
Although they were not familiar with this profession, they succeeded in cultivating 15 acres completely and obtaining a good amount, but with the start of the fall season, the sources of income were completely lacking, and Othman became dependent on what he previously saved.
Othman decided to enter the field of agriculture, and found a land that he rented for 60,000 pounds and decided to grow it with okra and wilderness (Al -Faqas).
His project succeeded in the beginning, but the heavy rains that fell and turned into a torrent that destroyed him, but he did not despair and after drying the water he restored the cultivation again and then the harvest started, and the first production of okra was distributed to the villagers for free.
He used his sons to cut the okra and harvest 22 shawla, then began the harvest of the wrath, and he was selling one shawl for 15 thousand pounds, and then he thought about cultivating legumes and equipping the land for that.
“After the success of the experiment, I began to forget the war, but as we were preparing for agriculture, the rapid support militia invaded the state of the island, so life stopped completely and the contacts and electricity were cut off after it started raiding homes, looting and theft.”
Othman decided to leave Al -Jazeera, and paid everything that he saved to survive and his family, and the destination was the city of Shendi, north of Khartoum, and they settled in the village of Al -Juwair, and he continued to work in the onion for two months until the work stopped with the entry of Ramadan, and the journey of searching for alternatives started to sell clothes and shoes and then food, but the return was very small.
Return
“When the war knocked on the doors of the city of Shendi, after targeting the aircraft running out of rapid support and attacking the honey area south of the city, life began to stagnate, and many left it,” Othman explains.
Othman met one of his acquaintances in the city of Bahri, and he suggested that he work in “Raksha” (a motorcycle carrying 3 people) and gave him its owner without charge, to maintain it only, and he was getting from his new profession a small amount that barely met the needs of his family.
“We continued this bitter reality for a year, after which the army liberated the state of Al -Jazeera, Bahri and Khartoum, so the residents began to return and I was from them, and I returned to Bahri,” he says.
Othman is currently residing in the city of Al -Kadrou North Bahri, and works in the field of construction with a daily wage ranging between 7 thousand and 10 thousand pounds, and also maintains electrical appliances.
The largest lesson came out of this experience, which he described as “very cruel and bitter” that “it is possible to live and manage your life with the simplest things.”