2019 Is a Year the Sudanese Will Never Forget

The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)
The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)
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2019 Is a Year the Sudanese Will Never Forget

The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)
The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)

The Sudanese will not forget 2019 and their revolution, the revolution that brought down the most brutal dictatorship in the country’s history. They will forget not the bloodshed, the rapists, or the groans of the tortured. They will not forget the year with many days of hope, the year they weaved a “portrait of defiance” in the face of the regime’s brutality.

The Sudanese celebrated their revolution’s first anniversary on the 19th of December, the country’s third revolution after the October and March revolutions of 1964 and 1985. The revolution continues a year after it began and months after its victory on the 11th of April.

The revolution inherited arbitrary wars throughout the country and a flabby and corrupt state apparatus controlled by the regime’s Islamist cronies. The new government is fighting hard to find peace, retrieve the state from them, and instill an honest and efficient apparatus in its place.

The revolution’s story

After four months of uninterrupted peaceful protesting, the popular movement brought an end to Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year reign. The 6th of April, five days before Bashir was brought down, as the myth of the legendarily repressive state was shattered by the huge numbers who confronted the army in the capital.

The Sudanese Professionals Association

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an association of professional syndicates, adopted the movement’s demands and called for a protest in Khartoum, which would head to the palace and ask the president to resign on December 25th; they were met with gunfire and tear gas at the hand of the security forces. Protests continued, and on the 1st of January last year, the “Declaration of Freedom and Change” was born and adopted by most of the country’s opposition parties and civil society organizations. Thus the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance was formed.

Sit-in facing Army Command

By the end of March 2019, the regime had begun to crumble under the weight of the movement, and Bashir appeared shaken in the speeches he delivered to his supporters.

Social media played a pivotal role in documenting the killing of peaceful demonstrators, exposing the major transgressions perpetrated by the regime's security apparatus to the world.

“Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change” announced that a march to the General Command of the Sudanese Army would take place on April 6, the anniversary of the 1986 uprising against President Jaafar Nimeiri. As the sun set that day, millions of people surrounded the army leadership, and the alliance declared that the sit-in would persist until the president stepped down. The security services and the Islamists’ militias tried to break the sit-in by force, but they failed after attempts.

Tragedy at the sit-in

When the army announced that Bashir would be removed on April 11th to be replaced by a military council led by its former Lieutenant General, Awad Ibn Auf with Lieutenant-General Kamal Abdel Maarouf as his deputy. Both men had been members security committee set up by Bashir to quell the protests, and a massive sit-in was held in response immediately. Under the weight of its pressure, Ibn Auf resigned and the military council was dissolved, and he announced the formation of a new council headed by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Inspector General of the Army at the time, and the current Transitional Council Chairman. Tragedy in struck in a sit-in on June 3 third, the security forces committed a massacre next to the army leadership base, killing dozens wounding hundreds, ending the Forces of Change's relationship with the military. In response, what is known as the giant June 30 processions, were held, shifting the balance of power in the favor of revolutionary forces.

African mediation and the constitutional document

Regional mediation, led by Ethiopia and the African Union, supported by the international community, succeeded in compelling them to sign a sharing agreement on August 17th after holding marathon negotiations and putting intense pressure on the junta and revolutionary forces,



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.