The Current - Sudan Through the Lens: The Stories Behind the War

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

As Sudan's war enters its fourth year, much of the story is told in numbers, millions displaced, thousands killed. But photojournalist Abdulmonam Eassa is trying to show something else. He's spent years documenting Sudan, from the hope of the 2019 revolution to the devastation of today's conflict. His latest work, “War in Sudan: A Trapped Nation,”just earned him a World Press Photo award. He takes us behind the images on what's described as the world's forgotten war.

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This month marks three years since the start of the Civil War in Sudan. Fighting between Sudan's army and the rebel force called the RSF has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million from their homes, and the country has been pushed into what the United Nations describes as the world's largest humanitarian. crisis. But often, much of what is happening in Sudan is told, if it's told at all, in numbers. And the people living through the war often get lost in the conversation. The moments in between the fighting, a child growing up in a shelter, a family returning to a home that no longer exists, a city that once felt alive, now quiet. Those are the moments that Syrian French photojournalist

Abdul Monom Issa has been documenting. He's spent years in and out of Sudan, first during the hope of its revolution and now through the devastation of war. His latest work, War in Sudan, a trapped nation, has just won a World Press Photo Award. Abdulemona Misa is in Syria. Abduem Misa, hello. Hey, Matt, thank you, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here, and congratulations on this award. Thank you very much. You have said that what is unfolding in Sudan resonates personally for you. Tell me about that. Like, honestly, I start working as a like the photo photographer as a photo journalist in Syria after the revolution in Syria and basically I you know I had no like not at all like professional training in this

field so basically like my my first years of me working on on this field was like covering the one of the longest siege of in our modern history in my hometown that no all knew by the name of Guta, the String Guta, it's the Sebers of the Maskers. So, you know, the question of the revolution was like part essentially of my

life. So when I fled Syria, I escaped Syria in early 2018, I made my way to France, where I, you know, rebelled my life there. And it was the time when the Sudanese revolution

managed to take out the street and, you know, like, 100,000 of people were demonstrating daily during, like, from December 2018 until they managed to make this huge setting in Khartoum and they managed to throw the regime of Amar al-Bashir that stayed in power for 30 years.

So by then, you know, I, you know, like what's happened in Khartoum inspired me. I was following Christop. online all these details and then I decided. I decided later to prepare my first trip to Sudan, just willing to understand better how the Sudanese people managed to organize this, you know, like an incredible revolution

and, you know, like what they are hoped for. And so I went to Sudan to discover all these details. When you went to Sudan first, after the 2019 revolution. What did the country feel like then? So basically I went during the transition government late by the end of 2020, where I was based for almost 18 months in Sudan in Kharton.

So honestly, it was a time of hope because, you know, the transition government, which is, of course, the military still, you know, stayed behind the sense, controlling most of the country. But like the effort of the civilians back to the time, they were trying to remove what left from the former regime, the dictator regime, and trying to build like a new state of, you know, justice, peace and freedom.

You went back in 2023. How different was the country then from what you first saw? So I didn't manage to come back in, 23, but the access was very difficult to reach Sudan. Sudan was mainly cut his relation from the entire world. Most of the foreign country, they managed to take out their citizen. But with my colleague, I'm working on Sudan since the beginning, mainly for like for the French newspaper, Lomond. We managed to have a visa by October 24. So we went there and honestly it was like very tricky moment of this conflict because we didn't manage to reach the capital. We managed to reach Omdurman, which was the front line of the fighting,

the ongoing fighting between the army and the paramilitary forces. So it was quite like, let's say. sad because, you know, I used to know these places well. I used to hang around with a lot of protesters in Omburman and, you know, we

went to some neighborhood that was like devastated by the fighting and by the shilling. Can I ask you about a couple of the pictures that you have made, some of the photos that you've taken and just the people

in them? One is this photo of an 11-year-old boy, Hanin. What's going on in that photo? Hanin, like, in the picture, he's standing in, like, a damage, like, room, which is part of a social center, like, lead by a Sudanese professor who is, you know, taking care of, of a dozen, of orphan, which what we called them the orphan of war.

Like Hanin, he is, you know, one of this, I believe, a hundred of children across Sudan that they lost their parents. Their parents were killed during the war. And they end up, you know, struggling to feed themselves, to sleep, like, you know, to sleep in the street sometimes. You know, we talk always about Sudan, 100 of 1,000, one of the biggest crisis in the world.

We have only numbers. So for us, it was very important to show like this, you know, this small details of story. Who are these people who struggle under the war? Let me ask you quickly about another photo. And this is a photo of there's a line of women outside of a recruitment center. What's happening there? So across the country where the army, let's say, controlled the regular army,

like they open this kind of like recruitment center where they trained women, girl, like sometimes very, very young women to how, like to how to use the weapons. Basically, according to this, you know, like officer of the army who were taking lead of the training, They were saying about, you know, like, we want to prepare them in case of they need to defend their neighbor or their city. Some of them they were like a bit afraid. Other they were very willing to do that. They were very, you know, bright, proud of, you know, making something to their country. We had a lot of recruitment center across the Sudan specifically for women.

And it's, you know, it's the picture where, you know, like, Like this dozen of women standing holding their hand behind their bag and looking at the military officer who is, you know, making his speech. Learning how to shoot machine guns. Yes, yeah. So, yeah, the officer where he was, like, you know, justifying this way of saying, you know, because a lot of women, they have been raped by their enemy.

So they wanted to train them, to prepare them in case of they will need them for the fight. This is, as I said, the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. And to your point, there are people behind those numbers. but this story is not being told very often around the world. It is not one of the top stories because there are a lot of other crises in the world right now. What do you want people to think about when they look at your photos? Like me personally, what I really wanted, that the people look at the Sudanese, not like they are numbers. You know, they are humans like us.

They have stories, they have names, they have age, they have, they had a such, you know, modest life before the war, but they are very satisfied, they like it very much. And what I always try to do in this, you know, specifically in this story of Sudan, is, you know, like, sitting with the people talking to them long time. I'm hearing their story, but also, you know, like, ending up mentioning, like, part of their, you know, personal life, who they are, you know, like. So for me, it's very important to treat the Sudanese people as whoever in the entire world. You know, they are not, we are not different, even if we have, like, social background, but we need to treat them as a human being. and to highlight and to show their story correctly. That's a really important message. These photos are really powerful,

and I'm glad that you took them, and I'm glad that you're safe in the wake of that. And congratulations again on the award. Thank you very much for speaking with us. Thank you very much, Matt. Take care. Thank you for happy with you. Abdulman Amisa.

It was a photojournalist and a photographer who recently won a World Press Photo Award for his work, War in Sudan, a trapped nation. We reached him today in Syria. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.