Sudan is filled with stories of increasing loss over the past 39 days, and no ceasefire or forced break can ease the pain for families trying to gather the remnants of their lost loved ones and victims en masse. Life was possible before this, albeit not in the best of conditions, before the first shot was fired, and the first cannon and airstrike began. Days came that erased neighborhoods, markets, and lifestyles in mere hours, leaving nothing but headlines in newspapers and media outlets: a free death for a doctor returning from her workplace, a student buried by his comrades in a yard they could access, a mother hit by a bullet from her kitchen window while preparing food for her children, and a family reduced to just a grandchild or a memory photo. In recalling their memories, what truce can silence the echoes of these recollections?
Sudanese engineer Khaled Othman, who works in Oman, recounts how he lost his mother, a doctor, two minutes after she was shot. They were talking on the phone when he heard gunfire and the sound of shells. He urged her to stay away from the windows, and she reassured him that she and her siblings were sheltering in the yard, before she screamed: "There's blood on my neck." Despite her husband's attempts—he is a doctor—to give her first aid at home, she passed away, and the family could only bury her hours later amid the shelling and under the threat of snipers. Khaled comments: "I feel a tightness in my chest as though a stone is weighing me down. How difficult it is to bury a family member without a farewell. My greatest fear is another call bringing news of further loss among my relatives," noting that his family managed to move to a city far from the fighting in Khartoum. Regarding the combatants, he said: "I'm not partisan; I only care for my country. Those who destroyed Sudan, killed my mother, the youth, and displaced families—they are not one of us."
**Children of War**
Abdelkader Al-Naeem, a devastated Sudanese husband whose family has been torn apart, shares that a shrapnel pierced the walls of their home and struck his wife, the mother of five children. Despite the dangers of traveling through the streets where clashes occur, Abdelkader sought help from around eight hospitals but found none to save his wife, who bled for eight hours. The reason given was the lack of supplies and medical equipment. Because she entrusted him with caring for their children, he feared the same fate happening to one of them as what happened to his wife. He rented a car and moved to a shelter while waiting for official documents to allow him to enter Egypt. Due to the crowded border and the large number of applicants for asylum in Egypt, the father remains stuck in difficult conditions as the shelters lack necessities for a family that has lost its mother, with the father having to sing every evening to his one-year-old son to help him sleep on the sand, haunted by nightmares of that day he saw his mother's blood on the floor, while she was struggling and smiling at her little one.
**From Sudan to Egypt**
As if sorrows do not come alone, the news of doctor Rafeeda Abd Al-Aal's death in Sudan brought tragedy to her family in Egypt. Upon her young body’s arrival in Sohag, where she was studying physical therapy in Sudan, her mother, Afnan Khalaf, suffered a drop in her blood circulation. Resuscitation efforts failed to save her life, and mother and daughter were laid to rest in the same grave.
**Protocol for Document Destruction**
The devastating blow suffered by Sudanese youth in the recent war has shattered dreams of traveling and continuing education and work abroad, as foreign embassies and missions proceeded to destroy sensitive documents and files before their departure, including the passports of some Sudanese who had applied for visas, leaving hundreds of Sudanese youth without documents that would allow them to exit their country legally. The "New York Times" reports this suffering caused by the document destruction protocol, highlighting the account of young engineer Salma Ali, who submitted her passport to the U.S. embassy three days before the war broke out. She sadly tells the newspaper: "I can hear the roar of warplanes and the sound of intense shelling from my window… and I am currently trapped here with no way to escape." Salma, 39, had hoped to travel to Chicago this month for a training course, and from there to Vienna to start her new job with a United Nations organization.
**Missing Persons**
Three days ago, Sudanese youth Mohamed Hassan made a plea through Facebook, asking for assistance in finding his sister, attaching her photo. He wrote: "My sister went out today, May 19, she is 20 years old, to the store before Friday prayers. She was wearing a black abaya and a black headscarf. The location is 29 Umbeda, west of Libya market. We ask God to reunite us with her and to protect her. Anyone who recognizes her or has information should contact us." The Sudanese initiative "Missing" has reported approximately 229 missing persons since the outbreak of fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, including foreigners.
Many families have broadcast calls for help through this initiative due to the disappearance of family members who volunteer to search for essential needs at a time when police work has completely ceased since the situation in Sudan exploded on April 15. According to Sara Hamdan, a volunteer in the coordinator committee of the "Missing" initiative, the statistics are subject to increase or decrease due to the scarcity of information, poor phone operation, weak internet services, and the difficulty in reporting and movement to search for the missing, alongside the expansion of the clashes.
**Final Photos**
In wars, only photos of friends remain. This is how a Sudanese youth summarizes the terrifying situation in Sudan, commenting: "It's more than a civil war." Through Twitter, he chose to keep a memory of his friend's family, who has passed away, bidding farewell with a tweet: "A picture of my friend’s family, who perished in the Sudan war. Only one grandson remains."
