Displaced Families Return to a Devastated Khartoum

Edited By: Tendai Zola

After more than two years of brutal conflict, Sudan’s capital Khartoum is showing signs of life again. Residents who fled the war are slowly coming back, only to find a city in ruins.

For many, the return is bittersweet.“We lost precious belongings we had kept for years. Everything we hid under the floor was taken,” says Afaf al-Tayeb, who returned to her home in the Al-Qawz district last June. “They left us nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

Her son, Mohamed al-Khedr, recalls finding their home destroyed: “A shell hit the house and burned everything.”

The scars of war are everywhere. Homes, schools, and critical infrastructure have been reduced to rubble. Electricity facilities have been almost completely wiped out. “All the major substations in Khartoum were destroyed or looted, along with transformers that power entire neighborhoods,” says Altayeb Saad al-Din, spokesperson for the provincial government.

Despite the devastation, people are trickling back since the army announced it had retaken the city earlier this year. The United Nations estimates that two million people will return to Khartoum by the end of 2025, though rebuilding will require years of effort and billions of dollars in investment.