Capturing a ‘Mosaic of Shifting Battle Fronts’ in Sudan

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Every month since Sudan’s catastrophic civil war erupted in April 2023, the news has gotten worse — ever more people displaced, starved or killed. As the chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times, based in Kenya, I have covered the conflict closely. But reporting on it from inside the country seemed impossible.

Visas to enter Sudan were hard to obtain. Few journalists have gained entry since the war began. But one day this spring, after a chance meeting with an old contact, I found a way in.

In April, I flew into Port Sudan, the country’s de facto wartime capital, with the photographer Ivor Prickett and Jon, a Times safety adviser. At the airport’s immigration desk, I watched anxiously as our passports (coincidentally, all of them Irish) were passed between three officials. Aid workers had warned us that we could be refused entry, even with visas.

“Ka-chunk.” The last official stamped our passports. We were in.

The war between the national army and its paramilitary rival had ravaged Sudan, splintering Africa’s third-largest country by area into a volatile mosaic of shifting battle fronts. Still, its bureaucracy endured. We spent our first days in meetings, filling out forms and cajoling officials to issue us “the letter” — the coveted permission we needed to report freely.

The wait was especially frustrating for Ivor. One evening, down by the port, families celebrated the end of Eid al-Fitr under beautiful evening light. But Ivor had to leave his camera in the car and just watch the scene unfold.

Once a sleepy port, Port Sudan has been inundated with people fleeing the fighting. Rents have soared to levels worthy of London or New York, and prices can be extravagant. At the Coral Port Sudan Hotel, a rundown hotel that was once the city’s finest, we ordered three sandwiches, sodas and coffees for lunch. The bill came to $90, which I paid for with a brick of Sudanese pounds, the country’s crashing currency, that I carried around in a shopping bag.