TRANSCRIPT:
Yasir EL-HASSAN: "Most nights we go to sleep and we don't know if tomorrow we're going to get a phone call that something horrible has happened to one of our own loved ones or family."
Ahlam IBRAHEEM: "I miss my life. All the memories, my home place. Sometimes I find my mum crying, even during sleeping. When she's sleeping she cries. I wish I took just a bit of sand from my home before I came."
Ahlam Ibraheem and her 19-year-old son Yasir El Hassan sharing the emotional toll that war in their home country of Sudan has taken on them.
You may have seen a lot of headlines recently about war in the Middle East, in Ukraine and even the potential for civil war in the United States.
But a devastating conflict that has torn apart the northeast African country of Sudan and forcibly displaced more than 10 million people has largely slipped through the cracks of Australian media and political institutions.
This comes as United Nations officials plead for more awareness of what has been called the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
NKWETA-SALAMI: "We keep saying that the situation is horrific and grim. But frankly, we are running out of words to describe the horror of what is happening in Sudan. What is happening is verging on pure evil."
WOSORNU: "When famine happens, it means we are too late. It means we did not do enough. It means that we, the international community, have failed. This is an entirely man-made crisis and a shameful stain on our collective conscience."
A recent declaration of famine and intense food insecurity in some regions is just the latest development in the Sudanese crisis that has shaken the country of almost 50 million people.
But how did this all begin?
Sudan, which lies on the southern border of Egypt, used to be ruled for 30 years by a dictator called Omar al-Bashir from 1989 to 2019 until a coup saw him thrown out of office.
This coup saw the Sudanese military team up with paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces - or RSF - to oust al-Bashir.
The military took control of the government but were supposed to transition the country toward a civilian-led democracy.
However, in April of 2023, tensions between the head of the army - General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan - and leader of the RSF - Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo - led to the outbreak of one of Africa's most explosive conflicts.
While information is scarce, the United Nations estimates that tens of thousands have been killed in the power struggle over the past year and a half.
Dr Ahlam Ibraheem, a Sudanese-Australian GP in Sydney whose family remains in Sudan, says she doesn't call the conflict a civil war.
"It's not a civil war. It is a war between military and paramilitary and who's the victim? It's the people there, the innocent people. They are fighting each other in the street, in the small towns, in the village. Killing, raping, all the crime. Whatever crime comes to your mind, it is happening over there. Now more than half of the Sudanese people are displaced by force. They're now in the street. No shelter, no food, the health system is completely collapsed and destroyed."
While Dr Ibraheem and her son first moved to Australia back in 2011, her family largely remains in Sudan.
Her brothers and mother have been displaced by the war with her mother escaping through Egypt in the first months of the conflict and eventually joining her in Australia.
One brother has been directly affected by the violence, with Dr Ibraheem claiming he suffered a devastating head injury at the hands of a Rapid Support Forces militant which caused the loss of his vision.
She says the disruption of communication networks in Sudan has made it very difficult to make sure her loved ones are safe.
"It's very hard to communicate. I still have my two brothers there and one of my brothers, he was hit in his head. He lost his vision. Just his son, he sent us a message, 'Dad lost his vision' and we couldn't communicate with them for a whole month. We didn't know what happened, was he shot by a gun? It was a very hard time. I couldn't tell my mum who was with me here. It was very stressed time for me. Sadly, one of our colleagues - she's a doctor - she was found dead in her house. They just left her body in her backyard."
Her son Yasir El Hassan says it's been incredibly painful to see the country he was born in devastated by violence.
"It is really difficult seeing over the internet, just seeing places you grew up in and visited and just hold so much memories in just being destroyed and you start to think that it's kind of gone forever. Hopefully in the future Sudan will be rebuilt and that's the best outcome we can hope for, but it's just not going to be the same."
He also mentions this pain is amplified by a lack of awareness of the issue in Australia.
"It feels like Sudan is just being forgotten about. Not even forgotten about because no one actually knows to begin with. Like you tell someone you're from Sudan here and they ask, 'oh, how is it there?' No one actually has any awareness of the situation at hand. And then when you start telling them, they're like, 'oh, I'm so sorry to hear that', but it doesn't really bother them too much. You won't really hear too much about it. The next time you have a conversation with said person, they've already forgotten."
So, why is it that we rarely hear about this crisis in Australia?
Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Technology Sydney, Andrew Jakubowicz, says war zones like Sudan are difficult to cover for Australian media and are often considered a low priority.
"You need resources and assets on the ground in those places. And that's both expensive and dangerous. But also, I think, there's that sort of axiom in media studies that one person killed in your local area is as important, or probably more important, than 100,000 people killed on the other side of the world."
Founder and Chair of the African Australian Advocacy Centre, Noël Zihabamwe, attributes part of this lack of coverage to the way some parts of Australian media have proliferated negative images of African-Australians.
"African issues often struggle to gain sustained attention in Australian media. So, this can be attributed to several factors or reasons including, for example, limited Africa diaspora influence here in Australia, a perceived lack of audience interest, but last but not least, when it comes to reporting, especially big media here, they tend to show the negative image. And once we start demonstrating the positive change for African Australians - the contributions we're making here - that image of Africans, not only Africans here, but also Africans in Africa will change."
Professor Jakubowicz also says a large portion of Australian audiences simply struggle to understand and empathise with the experiences of people in Africa.
"When you deal with people who look more like Australians, the mass of Australians, that is they look more European in their features, they're much more comprehensible, I guess, than people who are distinctly different looking from the majority of the Australian population. There's also another factor that you can't rule out, which is exposing yourself to these narratives also generates an enormous sense of frustration."
He argues audiences will disengage with stories if there doesn't appear to be any avenue to funnel that frustration.
However, there are organisations both here and abroad that are asking for contributions in order to help the Sudanese community.
As well as financially supporting her displaced relatives, after the war broke out, Dr Ibraheem formed a non-profit organisation called the Sudanese Australian Health and Wellbeing Association.
She says the organisation provides culturally-aware support to her community who have been affected by the war and helps new arrivals transition to life in Australia.
"We are trying to empower our community by improving or increasing the health awareness to reduce the stress by a few sessions regarding how to deal with the situation. And also for the newly arrived people as well after the war, also we want to try to engage the new people into the Australian community."
Professor Jakubowicz says better coverage of issues that affect migrant and refugee communities could go a long way to improving social cohesion and intercultural understanding in Australia.
"We know that the lack of attention to stories that are relevant to many of the particularly refugee communities doesn't help in their sense of social inclusion. And they look for alternatives and they feel distanced from the wider Australian environment that they've entered. If there was more about them, then they'd feel more part of the story that they're a part of. And if there was more about the diversity of Australia and the important elements in the lives of the people who have arrived then that sense of understanding difference would be increased. What we'd call sort of intercultural communication would be we be greatly improved."
Mr El Hassan says he hopes he and his mum can continue to raise awareness of what's happening in Sudan and hopefully get visas granted for their displaced family members.
"Any coverage towards the situation will help tremendously. Even the people that have migrated recently to escape the war and stuff, they feel like their voices will be heard. That's what me and my mum are trying to accomplish. We try to accommodate for people like them, try to help them out even in the slightest way possible. And eventually with the more coverage we can hopefully get those people in power to listen to what we have to say and hopefully get more visas across. Play a part in helping our people, our community, our families, because most nights we go to sleep and we don't know if tomorrow we're going to get a phone call that something horrible has happened to one of our own loved ones or family."
