Khartoum’s Abandoned Buildings Return to Life through Photographs

“Sudanese Pictorial Photography” is one of many projects aimed at reviving buildings that reflect the old face of Sudan. (Asharq Al--Awsat)
“Sudanese Pictorial Photography” is one of many projects aimed at reviving buildings that reflect the old face of Sudan. (Asharq Al--Awsat)
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Khartoum’s Abandoned Buildings Return to Life through Photographs

“Sudanese Pictorial Photography” is one of many projects aimed at reviving buildings that reflect the old face of Sudan. (Asharq Al--Awsat)
“Sudanese Pictorial Photography” is one of many projects aimed at reviving buildings that reflect the old face of Sudan. (Asharq Al--Awsat)

“Sudanese Pictorial Photography” is one of many projects aimed at reviving buildings that reflect the old face of Sudan and documenting old, historic and abandoned buildings, and reintroducing them to the new generation.

“The initiative is fueled by our love for Sudan. The name was selected to reflect the targeted aim of the initiative, which is highlighting the country’s hidden gems and unknown beauties,” said Engineer Rim Hussein, the brain behind the idea.

Hussein believes that “these buildings have been subject to a silent abandonment, and are almost fading because of the popular and official neglect. So, we had to act and shed light on the history and heritage that a cracked wall in a building or an old banner could hide to keep them remain alive in people’s memory.”

About the work plan, Hussein said she photographs old buildings according to a certain vision that aims at connecting people to these buildings.

“The anecdotes my mother and father used to tell us about their youth, college days, where they worked, and the connection of places with Sudan’s social and political reality, drove a constant attention to details in me, and gave me an active, spatial memory,” she added.

“With time, I noticed the changing feature of our beloved country. Secret keepers, unfortunately, die or leave, so I had the idea of posing in photographs with these old building as background,” Hussein said in describing the beginning of her idea.

“My main motivation was feeling that these buildings or houses aren’t just deaf stones, but living objects that carry the philosophy of life and its aspects in past times and communities.”

She said her entire process started with documenting the post building in Khartoum. “I searched for a long time, and took information from my mom who was an employee at the post authority. The building is made from sandstone and inspired by the past century’s Victorian architecture.”

“Later, we documented some buildings in the Republic Street, in the center of Khartoum, including the Sahara Hotel, the Acropol, and Sudan Club,” she revealed, adding that the search for the last building took over two years to collect information, accessories and garments, assemble the photography team, and acquire permits.

The photography documentation wasn’t limited to old buildings and hotels, but also included some stores that were famous in the 1970s.

About her vision for the future, Hussein said: “I hope this experience would prompt a drive to turn these places and buildings into touristic landmarks given their spatial significance and historic dimensions.”



China’s ‘Hawaii’ under Water as Tropical Storm Dumps Record Rainfall

People and vehicles move through a waterlogged road in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Oct. 28, 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Zhao Yingquan)
People and vehicles move through a waterlogged road in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Oct. 28, 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Zhao Yingquan)
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China’s ‘Hawaii’ under Water as Tropical Storm Dumps Record Rainfall

People and vehicles move through a waterlogged road in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Oct. 28, 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Zhao Yingquan)
People and vehicles move through a waterlogged road in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Oct. 28, 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Zhao Yingquan)

For a third day, extreme rainfall pounded the southern Chinese province of Hainan, known as China's "Hawaii", amid the transit of yet another tropical cyclone, leaving the island half-submerged in a year of record-breaking wet weather.

Cities in Hainan including Sanya, famed for its palm trees, seafront hotels and sandy beaches, remained waterlogged on Tuesday due to Tropical Storm Trami to the south. On Monday, Sanya logged 294.9mm (11.6 inches) of rainfall over a 24-hour window, the most for any day in October since 2000.

Trami made landfall in central Vietnam on Sunday after a slow trek across the South China Sea from the Philippines, where it left at least 125 people dead and 28 missing. While Hainan did not take a direct hit from Trami, Chinese authorities took no chances, recalling all fishing vessels and evacuating over 50,000 people.

China's entire eastern coastline has been tested by extreme weather events this year - from the violent passage of Super Typhoon Yagi across Hainan in September to the strongest tropical cyclone to strike Shanghai since 1949. Scientists warn more intense weather is in the offing, spurred by climate change.

"In October, the national average precipitation was 6.3% higher than the same period in previous years," Jia Xiaolong, a senior official at the National Climate Centre, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Last week, the water along China's Bohai Sea inexplicably rose up to 160 cm (5.2 feet) in a matter of hours despite the absence of any wind, leading to a tidal surge that flooded the streets of Tianjin and many cities in the northern provinces of Hebei and Liaoning.

"It's hard to imagine how much power was needed to push such a large area of sea water to one place," Fu Cifu, an official at the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre, told state-run Xinhua news agency at the time.

China is historically no stranger to floods, but its prevention infrastructure and emergency response planning are coming under increasing pressure as record rains flood populous cities, ravage crops and disrupt local economies.

Amid disaster recovery efforts this summer, authorities had to provide billions of dollars in additional funding to support reconstruction in multiple regions from the south to the northeast of China.

In July, the country suffered 76.9 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) in economic losses from natural disasters, with 88% of those losses caused by heavy rains and floods from Typhoon Gaemi, the most for the month of July since 2021.