NYC NOW - Jult 24, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella is filing a lawsuit to block congestion pricing in Manhattan. Plus, New York City leaders are deploying new surveillance cameras around the five boroughs in an effort to crack down on illegal dumping. And finally, WNYC’s Jared Marcelle checks in with a Sudanese family in Brooklyn as conflict continues to grip their country.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre for WNYC. We begin on Staten Island, where Borough President Vito Ficilla is planning to file a lawsuit to block congestion pricing in Manhattan. His announcement comes just days after the state of New Jersey filed its own suit, arguing the federal government rubber-stamped the plan. Fisela says congestion pricing will disproportionately affect Staten Island drivers, who already pay at least one toll to enter Manhattan. We believe congestion pricing is merely a fancy way of calling this plan what it really is. That's a driving tax. Fasela says he's still meeting with attorneys and elected officials about how to proceed with the legal challenge.

The congestion pricing plan will charge drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. It's expected to start next year. New York City is cracking down on illegal dumping by deploying new surveillance cameras around the five boroughs. WNIC's Sophia Chang looked into it. The sanitation department calls the hidden mobile surveillance cameras their eyes in the sky. This year, the city has quadrupled the number of the cameras that are set up at hotspots. They've caught people in the act of illegally dumping furniture, construction debris, and bags of regular household trash. The number of illegal dumping violations issued by the city has gone way up.

So far this year, the city has issued around 105 summonses for illegal dumping captured on camera. That's more than three times the number issued during the same period. last year. Each violation has a minimum fine of $4,000. Stick around. There's more after the break. The North African nation of Sudan remains gripped by conflict. While news of the months-long fighting has largely faded from the headlines, for one Brooklyn family, it's still very much a part of everyday life. WNYC's Jared Marcel has the story. Hi. How are you? That's all right.

Yeah. Taking my shoes off? No, it's okay. It's fine, yeah. That's Thweba El-Tum. I recently paid her and her family a visit at their home in Bay Ridge. It's a lovely neighborhood, by the way. How long have you lived in this neighborhood?

Bay Ridge is often called Little Palestine or Little Yemen. But Thweba is neither Palestinian or Yemeni, but originally from Sudan. She has two kids. I met as 12, and Norris. Almost nine. Almost nine. The hallway to the left of Fueba's apartment has a giant blue sign that covers the wall. On it reads Welcome Home and colorful permanent markers.

Some of the letters resemble Pokemon characters. On it are messages from different people. Oh, wow. So this sign has been up for how long? So they put it before we came. So this is where, like, a nurse class friend, they added this sign. No. You want to read some of these messages for us?

This is one of my friends. Her name is Abuis. She said, we all miss you so much. I can't wait to see you. That's nice. The sign had been up since April, while Thweba, Ahmed, and Noir, were stuck in Khartoum, just as fighting broke out.

In some ways, you could say Thieba's family is living the American dream. She works in tech. Her kids have lots of friends and participate in extracurricular activities. She first moved to New York back in 2014, not too long after her now ex-husband won a diversity lottery visa. Thuiba says during that time, Sudan wasn't a place she wanted to raise a family.

We were under dictatorship and for me it was like there was no sustainability. When I thought about future, like for me and for my kids, so that's why I moved and decided to come with him. Still, Fouba always wanted her kids to know more about their roots, which is why she planned a trip to Sudan back in April, which happened to fall over Ramadan. It was Ramadan, and I think like Ramadan is a very special time for all Muslims. None of them actually have like really been in Sudan or any Muslim's country during Ramadan. And also just for them to see their late to see my mom. I kind of miss my family.

I miss my sister. I miss my mom. And so the family packed their bags for what was meant to be an eight-day trip. They flew out on April 7th and touched down the following day in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, and the country's largest urban settlement, located. at the convergence of two rivers, the White Nile and the Blue Nile. And by all accounts, the first week was going well. That well.

I remember one time, like me and my cousins were playing, and we got in trouble for my grandma for being very loud. Threba's kids got to visit their father and his side of the family, and Thweba was able to spend time with her mom and sister. But then on April 15th, just as they were about to fly back to Brooklyn, chaos erupted throughout Khartoum and other parts of Sudan, the sounds of gunshots and explosions could be heard throughout the city, smoke-filled the air.

The family had found themselves trapped in the middle of an escalating power struggle between Abd al-Fatah al-Berhan of the Sudanese army and Mohamed Hamdan de Ghalo, leader of the rapid support forces, or RSF, two warring generals fighting for control over Sudan, with neither willing to yield power to a civilian government. The streets of Cartoon became a battleground. Thweba was at her mom's house, and her kids were across the river with their dad and his family.

I remember just walking up that morning, and my sister called, and she was just screaming, like, there is fighting, and then we realized, actually, there is a conflict happening outside. They closed all of the bridges, and it was really that time where, like, no one was able to do anything. It was really scary, because my kids were not with me. After three days of hiding,

Thweba's ex-husband was able to find a way to reunite Thweba and her kids. Together, they attempted to escape several times before finally boarding a bus to Port Sudan 500 miles away. They were lucky. I heard gunshot sounds, and well, 10 minutes after we left,

the place got bombed where we were in the bus. The family was able to leave on a Hungarian plane. This past April, the U.S. Embassy assisted about a thousand Americans in escaping Sudan. Thuban and her kids finally returned to New York City on April 30th. Now, the family is back in Brooklyn. The kids are out of school for the summer, and that welcome home poster is still hanging. Thuiba says the support from her kids' schools, friends and family was heartwarming,

but being back in their safe and quiet neighborhood feels different. What did it feel like to come back to New York after that, considering everything you had just gone through? It's like really that survivor goal of like, I've escaped. I kind of choose that my kids become safe, but then I left so many people behind, and that just couldn't, like, I couldn't stop thinking about that. There are a lot of friends, there are a lot of family that I know that are still struggling.

According to the UN's humanitarian affairs office, between April 15th and June 30th, over a thousand people have been killed in Sudan, 12,000 have been injured, and more than two million people have been displaced. But Thweba says people here just aren't paying attention. Like I remember during Ukrainian war, like, we would all knew what's happening in Ukraine. But not everyone knew what's happening in Sudan. I think part of it is like maybe the media is not kind of sharing enough about what's happening, not just Sudan, many areas in the world. And how sometimes I think people choose to actually not.

search about this information. Thweba says she finds comfort in the Sudanese community in New York and does everything she can to help the people back home. I've been like really trying, if I get an opportunity, to kind of educate people about what's happening in Sudan. I've been engaging with the Sudanese community and other also just friends of Sudan who are not Sudanese. Like in a few activities, we were just like in the Ralee in D.C.

There was just a few events happening. I've been just trying to participate. But I know whatever I'm just. I do, I'm not doing it now. A couple of weeks after I visited her home, I gave Thueba a call just to check in. Hello? Hi. I just had a friend who their house was bombed yesterday.

So it's like, it's just hard to do with the level of emotions happening. Sometimes I just woke up and I don't do anything because I literally could barely even do my work to survive, you know, but you still need to keep going. Thieba told me she doesn't consider herself a political activist, but rather a concerned. Surne Sudanese New Yorker, and there are many others here who feel just like her, safe in their house, but never far from home. That's WNYC's Jared Marcel. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday. Three times a day. We'll be back tomorrow.