When Ahmed El-Badawy awoke to the sounds of gunfire and heavy artillery in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, the Egyptian travel content creator didn’t think he’d soon be stranded in a flat with little food or water and unable to to leave.
It was around 9 a.m. on April 15 when the first shots were fired and dark plumes of smoke began to rise over the city. Fighting had broken out between the Sudanese army and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
A few days earlier, locals had told him about tensions between the rival forces in the northern city of Merowe, but everyone brushed it off as commonplace in a country accustomed to tension since the outbreak of popular protests in 2019 put an end to former president Omar. al-Bashir’s 30-year rule.
Merowe was El-Badawy’s intended destination that Saturday. The 23-year-old planned to head to the UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Nubian Pyramids, about 420km to the north. Sudan is home to 200 of the stunning structures, marking the capital of the ancient Kushite kingdom.
Unexpected travel content
El-Badawy, who arrived in Khartoum a week before the outbreak, is now stuck as flights have been halted from Khartoum airport, now a war zone where several aircraft have been destroyed.
The violence has killed at least 413 people and injured more than 3,550, according to the World Health Organization. According to the Sudanese Doctors Union, 70 percent of hospitals in Sudan are out of order.
Several ceasefires have failed to take effect and the warring generals – the army’s Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti – have rejected negotiations.
Despite the uncertainty and fear, El-Badawy continued to post some updates to his followers and says he wouldn’t have changed anything about his trip to Sudan, which, like his homeland, is on the Nile River.
‘Even if I had known… I would have come and stayed. It has always been a dream of mine to document people’s daily lives, even when they are in conflict,” he told Al Jazeera.
A special country
El-Badawy chose Sudan as his 60th destination. “I wanted it to be a special one, so I chose Sudan,” he said by phone from Khartoum.
“How could I have been to so many places, I thought, and not visited the one right on us [Egypt’s] threshold? We share a border, history and culture, yet I knew very little about Sudan,” he said.
El-Badawy, who has hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube and Instagram, prides himself on highlighting the daily life and people of every country, especially in the Arab world, a region that the global media mostly covers in terms of war and conflict instead of its people, rich history and diverse cultures.
“People have so many misconceptions about other countries, and I want to change that,” he said.
El-Badawy planned to travel through Sudan to Eritrea in late April and spent his first week visiting “every part of Khartoum” – such as the 200-year-old Souq Omdurman in Khartoum’s sister city – to film along the banks of the Nile, and a taste of Sudanese cuisine.
“I fell in love with kisra,” he said of the Sudanese flatbread made from fermented sorghum flour that is eaten with various stews.
“Sudanese people are extremely generous,” he said. “I have tried so many traditional dishes,” he added, describing a Sudanese Ramadan tradition where people would block roads with their cars just before sunset to force passers-by to break their fast with them.
“[T]The highlight of my time here was the people. It’s always the people,’ said El-Badawy.
“Despite the severe economic crisis and ongoing instability, everyone has been nothing but kind and welcoming,” said El-Badawy, explaining that he has received at least 500 messages on his Instagram account since the fighting broke out from local residents offering help .
Sudan’s economy has been caught up in a crisis that led to the overthrow of al-Bashir and has continued since, leading to rising inflation, a sharp currency devaluation, and growing poverty and unemployment.
Waiting
Like most people involved in the fighting, El-Badawy has spent the past week largely confined to avoid the violence.
After two days in a rented house, he moved to a family friend’s apartment in a safer part of town where, unlike other parts, there was still electricity and running water.
“We just stayed inside, only going out to get some groceries and water from the supermarket,” said El-Badawy.
He explained that finding staples like bread, water and canned food has become more difficult as store shelves are empty and prices are rising.
“Sudan, which was already surprisingly expensive, is becoming increasingly unaffordable,” he said. “I really feel for the people.”
El-Badawy, who also has French nationality, has been in contact with the French and Egyptian embassies in Khartoum. Both advised him to stay at home until further notice, as did his family.
El-Badawy experienced other problems during his travels. He was in Palestine when Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli forces while covering an Israeli raid on Jenin last May.
He joined the Palestinian pallbearers who were attacked by Israeli police as they carried Abu Akleh’s coffin in a funeral procession.
He was also close to an airstrike over Aleppo when he visited Syria last year and spent a night at an Iraqi military base to avoid being kidnapped by ISIL (ISIS) as he hitchhiked from Baghdad to Jerusalem.
Although the conflict in Sudan is becoming increasingly intense, El-Badawy says he is not afraid.
“I just feel sorry for the Sudanese people who had to go through this,” he said. “But whatever happens, I’m happy to be among them.”
‘Time to leave’
A week after the fighting, El-Badawy still held out hope that the situation would calm down and he could resume his journey.
But by Saturday night, a lot had changed. The internet and electricity in his area were down, leaving it in complete darkness as heavy artillery roared.
When El-Badawy and his friends went for a short car ride, he said, they were fired upon by RSF forces and were stopped and searched by the paramilitary group at three checkpoints in Khartoum.
“The RSF seems to have half of Khartoum under control,” El-Badawy said. ‘It’s getting dangerous. I am afraid the situation will turn into a street war.”
Although the French and Egyptian embassies have had no contact, El-Badawy plans to take one of the buses leaving Khartoum and head north to Egypt. He says that the private companies that operate the buses have increased ticket prices tenfold.
“I came here from Aswan [in southern Egypt] on one of these buses for $15. Now the tickets are selling for $70 to $150 each,” he said.
“I didn’t want to leave Sudan,” he said. “But alas, it’s time to go.”