Displaced residents return to war-shattered Khartoum

Khartoum residents displaced by years of fighting are returning home. But the Sudanese capital's infrastructure has been decimated and it will take years - and billions of dollars - to rebuild.

After more than two years of war, Sudan’s capital Khartoum is slowly returning to life.  

Residents forced out by the fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are trickling back to the city. But it's a bittersweet homecoming.  

"We lost precious belongings that we had for a long time. We lost many things, stuff that we concealed under the house floor and we found that it was taken," says Afaf al-Tayeb, who returned to her home in the Al-Qawz district of Khartoum City in June.

"I had gold, brand new food mixers, our clothes that we concealed were all taken, they left nothing for us except the clothes we are wearing, we wash it and wear it again." 

When the civil war erupted in April 2023, Khartoum was the epicentre of the fighting and homes and buildings in the city still bear the scars.  

"After the liberation we came to find the house as you can see it, a shell that hit the house and burnt everything," says al-Tayeb's son, Mohamed al-Khedr.

Reconstruction

Despite the devastation, people have been returning to the city since the army announced its recapture earlier this year. But the task ahead is immense.   

Altayeb Saad al-Din is a spokesperson for the Khartoum province government: 

"The destruction has completely affected the electric infrastructure, all the electric facilities starting from the huge electrical substations of Khartoum which hosts more than seven or eight electrical substations that are completely damaged and looted as well as the electrical transformers which distributes electricity inside the residential neighborhoods." 

The United Nations says it expects 2 million people to return to Khartoum by the end of the year. The estimated cost of reconstruction runs into the billions.  

Across the country, more than 12 million people have been forcibly displaced since the start of the war, while some 40,000 people have lost their lives.