Redouan Paradise
Osman Fadlallah
At least 2 million migrants are looking forward to returning to Khartoum, the city they loved and brought to life. However, the passion that draws them to their city, which they loved, blinded them of what had taken place in and on them in 200 days of fighting.
The Khartoum they want to return to immediately after the cessation of fighting has completely changed its features. Its details disappeared amid the rubble of collapsed buildings, the blackness of fires that burned and went out on their own. The war there is not the same as the wars in the modern world, it is the medieval war.
Survivors say they have emerged from a city they dont know, where gunpowder smells every inch of their land. Covered by black smoke, it seeks rabid dogs. Even rats are no longer the same, if you can while youre asleep you might nibble on part of your body. They describe it as a city of terror. Death lurks in every corner of it.
Although there are no accurate statistics, experts estimate, in addition to the Shambat Bridge that was destroyed last Saturday, the number of historical and vital installations destroyed by the war, and those ravaged by more than 120 installations, and some economies have estimated the cost of infrastructure destruction at more than 100 billion.
Shambat Bridge is known to be one of eleven major bridges connecting the capitals three cities, but it was not the only facility devastated by the aerial and ground shelling between the two sides of the fighting. Before it, Saad Kashrs famous market in Khartoum North was completely destroyed, and Omdurmans historic market was partially destroyed. The Arab and Afrangi markets in Khartoum, which are also historic markets, have been devastated. Parts of the universities of Khartoum and the Sudan were devastated, and the Natural History Museum in central Khartoum, which contains rare collections of animal and bird breeds, did not survive. He significantly vandalized the 190-year-old Republican Palace. The premises of the Sudanese Armys General Command have also been completely destroyed, and seven newly built towers, in addition to Khartoum airport, have been housed.
Another 35 buildings were also at risk of destruction, including the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance and National Economy and the Justice House, which are also historic buildings, along with the Post Office (telephone house). in addition to the value of these historic buildings and their unique architectural model; Part of it contains assets of considerable material, scientific and historical value, such as the Documents and Museums House, the Sudan Library, which contains everything that has been written about the Sudan since the colonial period, along with rare manuscripts and books that have not been duly protected.
I dont know if the capitals other museums, located far from the centre of Khartoum, survived vandalism. Such as Caliph Abdullah in Omdurman, a museum that chronicles the much-regarded period of Mahdia for the Sudanese, The Khartoum Museum, which highlights a different part of the countrys political and social history and contains invaluable monuments. unaccompanied museum workers do not know its fate.
All this ruin is added to the havoc in the neighbourhoods such as Khartoum II and Omdurman, which is almost just a rubble, along with large parts of the neighbourhoods of Riyadh, Kafuri, Hamad and Sababi and other neighbourhoods, made Khartoum city on its knees.
The gardens (beloved bankrupt), peoples gardens or April 6, you name it, have dried their flowers and transform their greenery into a row in which some of the ten bushes sprout, and the neem and fudge trees stand vacant, and they observe the ruins and ask which lovers they were still under.
Yes, the hallmarks of Khartoum we know have changed, and the printed city in each others memory no longer exists. Well go back to another city we dont know, she might recognize us, but we wont find the "Redouan Paradise" we left behind on the morning of April 15.
