Neighbors Come Together in Al-Daein

reporting by Amal Beito

with support from the Alive-in/ Editorial Team

This story is part of a partnership between Alive-in/ and DT-Institute to support Sudanese journalists inside and outside Sudan. DT Institute is both a funder and an implementer of peace and development projects. More stories can be read in Arabic on the Alive-in/Sudan Facebook page.

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AL-DAEIN, SUDAN–Through more than seventeen months of war, Al-Daein remained relatively safe, particularly compared to other areas of Sudan’s Darfur region. That all changed on Tuesday August 20th 202, as the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces reached Al-Daein.

Today Alive in Sudan brings you the story of Mona Salah El-Din Ahmed, a volunteer aid worker who has been leading various initiatives to help the people of Al-Daein and those who have been displaced there due to the fighting around Darfur and elsewhere across Sudan.

In November of last year and January of this year, Amal Beito visited Mona in El-Daein and spoke with her about her work and the challenges facing her community.

Sweat poured down the aid worker’s forehead as she walked under the hot sun, trying to find space for the displaced who were just arriving. She knocked on one door after the other, until one opened. They spoke for minutes about the situation, until the owner of the compound caved and allowed them to use the space for those in need. 

Mona Salah El-Din Ahmed, returned to her birth city after the war, the capital of East Darfur State. Today she is a lab technician passionate about volunteer work and a member of several initiatives in the city of Al-daein. I met with Mona at a café in Al-Daein, sharing conversation, coffee, and peanuts, in a space filled with groups of young people who enlivened the place with their discussions. 

"It’s a really great thing to be able to help someone when you’ve been in their situation." 

This is how Mona responded at the beginning of my conversation with her.

Under a gentle sun and in a pleasant atmosphere, Mona shared her dream of returning to Nyala, and told me how she tirelessly works to deliver aid to the city’s residents, particularly medical supplies like medicine, given her field of expertise.

During the interview, it was obvious to me that Mona felt some anxiety and discomfort about what was happening in Nyala, where she’d grown up and lived most of her life. Yet her resilience showed that she still had hope as long as there was life to keep going. "Despite the negativity that has spread everywhere, what keeps me positive is knowing that I’m still alive. As long as you’re alive, you should do something good."

Mona serves as as the financial secretary for an initiative  called Mobadarat Ijlaa, which is responsible for the evacuation of residents of Nyala to Aldaein. As such, she wanted to share with me the challenges she faced managing the initiatives financial matters. 

"In my experience with Street Accidents, transparency was a fundamental principle. In Street Accidents, if you brought even a grain of sand and donated it, it was reported. That grain of sand was donated by 'so-and-so' or a benefactor, or if someone wanted their name mentioned, it would be acknowledged that it went to 'so-and-so.' The system in Street Accidents was very well-organized."

Street Accidents is an initiative that initially began in Nyala in 2016. Their work includes gathering donations in the form of medical supplies and blood donations, as well as raising awareness to certain illnesses (breast cancer.. etc) within and outside of Nyala. Today they are based in Al-Daein, but still work to provide funds for medical treatment and manage shortages in medical resources as needed.

In Al-Daein on August 24, 2023, the "Evacuation" initiative began its work following an increase in the number of displaced persons in the city. The initiative was the idea of one of the volunteers from the "Nyala Calls You" initiative after she noticed the new displaced people’s need for support in the absence of official bodies.

Most of the displaced during that period were forced to flee the clashes in Nyala, leaving their homes under duress after shells fell on them from both sides of the conflict, eventually arriving in Al-Da'ain. The initiative aimed to ease the process of displacement and resettlement. 

Nyala is 160.4 kilometers northwest of Al-Daein, one of the more stable cities in Darfur. The Sudanese Armed Forces Headquarters in the area is outside of the city itself and the local authorities have leveraged tribal influence over the RSF and instructed them not to enter the city.

"The idea for the 'Evacuation' initiative came from a young volunteer in Nyala named Israa. Israa said, 'Why don’t we, the ones who arrived early, try to help the people who are just arriving?'”

“People were forced to leave Nyala under dire circumstances, so we decided that those of us who made it to Al-Daein should see what we could do to help them. We even got information that there were people stranded in the streets, and others at bus stations who couldn’t move because they didn’t have any money."

In addition to the initiative's initial efforts to evacuate some citizens from Al-Daein, despite the rapidly increasing number of displaced persons, the state government was unable to open new shelters to accommodate them. 

The "Evacuation" initiative team coordinated with the "Al-Da'ain Emergency Room" to provide for the needs of the displaced, whether through evacuation or hosting. The team quickly began working to provide places to host the displaced. 

"At the time, the local authorities were not able to open shelters, so they told us, 'There are large, spacious courtyards belonging to prominent families in the area who are already very hospitable; you could host people there.' So, we worked with the youth from the Emergency Room to identify these large courtyards and find empty houses. We managed to secure three houses, each with rooms and bathrooms, and we started receiving people. After that, we began looking for ways to secure funding."

The initiative operated under challenging circumstances in terms of both time and place, with little support from government institutions, especially in the early stages. "Sometimes, you'd find yourself walking around on foot without money for transportation, but confident that if you make two or three trips, God will ease things for the people you're helping. And things did get easier." 

Several avenues were opened for collecting donations and financial support for the initiative, including membership subscriptions, contributions from generous people in the city, and a link shared on Facebook for those who wanted to donate via the Bankak app. 

When I asked Mona about the support her organization received she told me, "We met with the youth of the Community Development Organization, led by Ruaha, and they told us they wanted to help, so they provided us with approximately three thousand dollars, around one thousand six hundred at the time. We used that money to create a basket of one hundred bags, which we distributed to four large schools used as shelters. That was the only significant funding we received."

Lack of funding was not the only challenge Mona and other volunteers of the initiative faced. Mona's emotions were mixed as she struggled to express the impact of the communication network outage on the initiative's work.

 "Oh! The network outage was something really tough, beyond explanation. The network being down was incredibly difficult. Even sharing updates with the rest of the group, like distributing this and that with pictures—we couldn't share them as we used to." 

There were many obstacles faced by the youth of the initiative, but Mona and her team are working hard to support their community. The strong bond between the initiative's members played a significant role in overcoming challenges, such as the support from some of the members' families who cooked meals in their own homes, which greatly contributed to the success of the initiative's activities. 

"When you feel a sense of responsibility toward your community, you try to find ways to help, whether here in El Daein with the Evacuation initiative, or even back in Nyala with the older initiatives still active there."

Mona shared her thoughts on the humanitarian situation in East Darfur and the provision of humanitarian and medical aid. "Honestly, as someone who is community-oriented, in East Darfur, the health services are delivered very well, but they are minimal compared to the services in South Darfur." 

The atmosphere remained pleasant and I enjoyed the conversation with Mona, which highlighted the dedication, awareness, and responsibility of youth towards their community, even amidst challenging circumstances. It was one of the surprises of hope for a better future and a unified Sudan through its youth and initiatives promoting compassion and love. 

At the end of our interview, Mona spoke with both concern and faith about her wishes, "I hope this war stops, and I hope we don't return to our old situation, even if people can return to their homes and stay there. I am sure we can return to how things were before, even if it takes time."

Meeting Mona was enlightening and comforting to me, as she acknowledged the efforts of youth under different circumstances for their community, proving that a country is built by the hands of its people and that goodness begets goodness.

As I was leaving her and heading back to my home, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Sudanese singer and poet, Abdul Aziz Al-Amiri.

*If I live to be of value, I'll make people happy with my presence, like the fresh leaves of a good branch that grows greener every day. I'll be a home for every refugee or a tenderness within shelters.*