Ravaged by war, Sudan's capital is slowly rebuilding

"The ground has not been cleared of mines," warns one of the guards of the building, located in Khartoum in an area classified as red by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

As clashes continue in the neighboring region of Kordofan, Prime Minister Kamel Idris recently announced the return of the pro-army government to the capital after nearly three years of exile in Port Sudan, more than 700 km to the northeast.

He has since been making numerous site visits and promises of a quick return to normal.

Thus, although the Central Bank headquarters is reduced to a blackened shell with shattered windows, its management announced this week, without further details, the resumption of its activities in the state of Khartoum, according to the official agency Suna.

The streets of the capital have been cleared and a few cranes stand here and there in the city ravaged by fighting between the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Front (RSF) and the army, which finally regained control last March.

Formerly allies, the two sides are now engaged in a fierce struggle for power, and the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 2023.

In the government district, the general secretariat and the presidency of the cabinet have been renovated, but many buildings, riddled with bullets, remain abandoned.

Empty neighborhood

On the broken sidewalk of a ruined intersection, a vendor has set up stools in the shade of a large tree and offers passersby tea or coffee. Having returned from the south where she had taken refuge, Halim Ishaq has been back at her stall "for two weeks now."

"Business is not good, the neighborhood remains empty," laments this 52-year-old mother who barely manages to earn 4 to 5.000 Sudanese pounds daily (less than two euros), three times less than before the war.

Like her, more than a third of Khartoum's nine million inhabitants fled when the RSF took it in the spring of 2023. More than a million have returned since the army came back.

The population is predominantly male: the men have returned to work, leaving their families at a distance.

"We're not selling much, people don't have money and the big companies haven't come back yet," laments Abdellah Ahmed, a glazier.

The renovated international airport has remained closed since a drone strike by the FSR in September shortly before the official inauguration, a sign of the fragility of the situation.

The "Grand Hotel," which boasts of having once hosted Queen Elizabeth II of England, hopes to welcome its first guests in mid-February, according to its manager. The grand lobby and its crystal chandeliers were spared, unlike the rear of the neoclassical building, which was renovated in the late 2000s, when oil money was flowing freely.

On the horizon, the Greater Nile Petroleum Company tower, once a symbol of the time when Khartoum dreamed of becoming the Dubai of Africa, is now a charred skeleton. During the war, the country lost half of its oil revenues, which had already been reduced by three-quarters after the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

"Many retailers are not returning because the large companies that supplied them are asking them for money" to reimburse the destroyed stocks, explains Osman Nadir, 40, an appliance seller who is himself facing legal action.

The general consensus is that the priority remains restoring water and electricity, and fully ensuring safety.

Dark streets

When night falls, "the streets are dark, deserted, you don't feel safe," says Taghrid Awad al-Rim Said, a 26-year-old medical intern. "Before, I could go out with my friends, I would like to get my social life back, like before."

"Like before and even better than before!", hopes the former director of the National Theatre, Abdel Rafea Hassan Bakhit, a retiree involved in the repair of the building, where volunteers are restoring the stage with its dusty curtains that saw great names like Oum Khaltoum or Louis Armstrong pass through.

In recent weeks, official visits have been taking place in the city, each time with promises of aid.

The UN estimates the rehabilitation of the infrastructure at approximately $350 million.

In the red and yellow stands of Al-Merreikh Stadium, nicknamed "the red castle," workers are busy removing overgrown shrubs. The football pitch has been leveled, and two pieces of construction equipment are sitting idle in the courtyard.

In the lobby, a few dusty photographs had escaped the looting. The last match was played a week before the war. Since then, the club, one of the oldest in Africa, has played in the Rwandan first division.