Current Analysis

Animating Sudanese History—An Interview with Leila Aboulela, Author of River Spirit

Historian Marie Grace Brown speaks to Leila Abouleila about her new novel, River Spirit.

Marie Grace Brown, Leila Aboulela • 14 min read

MER Article

Black Markets in Sudan—An Interview with Khalid Mustafa Medani

[su_dropcap style="simple" size="4"]I[/su_dropcap]n September 2022, Khalid Mustafa Medani, a former contributor to Middle East Report, received the Best Book prize from the American Political Science Association’s Middle East and North African Politics section for his 2021 release, Black

Khalid Mustafa Medani, Noora Lori • 12 min read

MER Article

The Challenge in Sudanese Women’s Football

Women’s football in Sudan has grown significantly since the 2000s, with more than 720 players and 21 teams now participating in the women’s national league. Yet attitudes toward women’s play vary across the country, with many footballers facing religious condemnation, social stigmatization, police h

Sara Al-Hassan, Deen Sharp • 11 min read

Current Analysis

The Challenge in Sudanese Women’s Football

Women’s football in Sudan has grown significantly since the 2000s, with more than 720 players and 21 teams now participating in the women’s national league. Yet attitudes toward women’s play vary across the country, with many footballers facing religious condemnation, social stigmatization, police h

Sara Al-Hassan, Deen Sharp • 11 min read

MER Article

Sudanese Migrants’ Labor in Times of Economic Crisis and Revolution

[su_dropcap style="simple" size="4"]“I[/su_dropcap] have worked so much,” Hamze told me, laughing, “It’s all the same.” Hamze grew up working on his parents’ land in Gezira, two hours south of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Gezira is known for its fertile

Anna Simone Reumert • 13 min read

MER Article

The Evolution of Sudan's Popular Political Forces

On January 30, 2011, a protest took place in Sudan’s capital Khartoum. Inspired by uprisings in other parts of the Arabic-speaking world, such as Tunisia and Egypt, activists announced and promoted the planned demonstration using social media platforms. The protesters demanded significant change: Th

Muzan Alneel • 17 min read

Mahmoud, The Sudanese Bourgeoisie

Fatima Babiker Mahmoud, a prominent intellectual and a lecturer in political economy at the University of Khartoum, presents here much new material for a cogent analysis of the political and economic role of the bourgeoisie in Sudan’s development from 1898 to the present. In her view, the origins, a

Cindi Katz • 2 min read

Letter from a Devastated Land

I arrived in Khartoum on April 15, nine days after the coup, as soon as the borders opened. In Cairo, I had watched film clips of the noisy, jubilant crowds that had brought down Numairi, but Khartoum was eerily silent now. The high of the revolution" had given way to the sense of crisis that once a

Ellen Cantarow • 8 min read

George Bush in Khartoum

Khartoum. The hand-painted sign on Nile Avenue here best captured the attitude of urban Sudanese toward the visit of Vice President George Bush to their country in early March, just four weeks before the popular overthrow of President Ja‘far Numairi. “Vice-President and Mrs. Bush,” read the sign, “a

Gayle Smith • 7 min read

The Generals Step In

Mass demonstrations in Khartoum at the end of March 1985 initiated a series of events which culminated in the overthrow of President Ja‘far Numairi’s regime in Sudan by the Sudanese military. What began as popular protest against increases in the price of basic commodities was transformed within a w

Abbas Abdelkarim, Abdallah el-Hassan, David Seddon • 15 min read

Sudan's Economic Nightmare

Ten years ago, Sudan was described in a Food and Agriculture Organization report as a potential “breadbasket of the world.” Hopes for the development of Sudan’s economy were running high at the time: the investment of Arab oil-generated revenues in Sudan's agricultural sector seemed to hold immense

Tim Niblock • 12 min read

Khartoum's Greatest Challenge

Colonel John Garang’s Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) played no direct role in the April 6 coup in Khartoum. But as the only organized, fighting resistance to the regime of Ja‘far Numairi, it laid the groundwork by chipping away at the state in a guerrilla campaign that cost the government

A Special Correspondent • 11 min read