Hammour Ziada: 'Only by accepting the other can a lasting peace be achieved in Sudan'

When Omar al-Bashir was ousted from power in 2019 after mass protests, Sudanese writer Hammour Ziada (b 1979) returned to his home country. Not to pick up his old life there, as he had lost it more than a decade earlier, "but to build a new life," he says on the phone from Cairo.

Hammour Ziada worked in Sudan as a human rights defender and wrote for several left-leaning newspapers there until he had to defect to neighbouring Egypt for political reasons in 2009. There he now works as a journalist. Yet Ziada is best known for his literary work. He was nominated twice for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) and some of his books have been translated into English. In 2019, the year of the revolution, his international fame received a boost when the film You Will Die at Twenty, based on his short story, won prizes at the Venice International Film Festival.

His first visit to Khartoum after the fall of Al-Bashir lasted only five days. Still, Ziada was determined to play an active role in the new democratic Sudan. 'I started moving back to Sudan little by little, until there would be stability,' he says. But before long, the dream evaporated and the glimmer of hope for a peaceful transition to a democratic system was shattered. Soldiers of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, attacked government buildings in the capital Khartoum on 15 April 2023. The war erupted in full force and rapidly spread to other regions.

For the writer, there was nothing left but to abandon the dream and pick up the threads of his life in Egypt.

Winner of the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Prize in 2014 for the story Shawq al-darawish (The longing of the Dervish), he has been working on a new novel for some time. But in times of war, writing is not natural. Following up on the situation in Sudan and helping take care of family and friends are now top priorities. 'There is little room for concentration,' he says. 'War puts pressure on the mind and takes away creativity'.

The horror in Sudan is great and the suffering immeasurable. The war has killed at least 15,500 people and displaced more than 9 million. In addition, according to a United Nations report, 775,000 people suffer from extreme hunger, while 8.5 million face food shortages.

Everyone is fighting everyone

But like all wars, Sudan's war will end at some point. What kind of country the Sudanese will wake up in then, no one can say exactly. 'Perhaps it will be in a very divided and crumbled country,' predicts the writer.

'This war is the result of a struggle for power that broke out after the coup against the transitional civilian government on 5 October 2021,' Hammour Ziada explains. 'The coup was led by both Lieutenant-General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Hemedti, leader of the notorious Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia known for crimes in Darfur. They were backed by cadres from the previous regime who wanted to secure a place in the new Sudan. It is those two generals who are now at war with each other.'

But what worries Hammour Ziada most is the fact that the war has deepened. 'It is no longer a conflict between two military leaders, but an all-out war where everyone is fighting everyone else,' he says.

This, he says, is due to the crimes committed on the civilian population by Hemedti's RSF, the bombings ordered by Lieutenant General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, and the inflammatory and hate speech used by the two fighting factions to incite their supporters and blame the other.

'And it is all accompanied by the distribution of weapons,' Ziada sighs. 'The SAF has allowed the population to arm themselves and form militias to defend their areas.'

Thus, distrust between population groups grows. The people of Darfur are accused of being partly responsible for the RSF militia's massacres of the civilian population because they belong to clans traditionally allied with Hemedti. Civilians from other provinces, in turn, are accused of supporting the SAF.

Meanwhile, the war dips into different regions, and more foreign powers become involved. Which only makes the situation more complex. The support Hemedti has managed to win in recent years extends beyond blood relatives or his own clans in Darfur. The man is also liked in countries such as the Central African Republic, Chad and Niger.

'Even within the army, Hemedti has made allies,' says Hammour Ziada. 'The army officers who were brought under his leadership with a view to greater cooperation and coordination between the RSF and the SAF stayed with the militia after the war broke out. But they were not dismissed or tried by the al-Burhan army.'

'Lieutenant general al-Burhan in turn found new allies in Iran and Russia,' Ziada adds.

Literature must guard collective memory

'What is exploding now is the direct result of all the dictatorships Sudan has known since independence in 1956,' says Hammour Ziada. 'All those regimes promised security above all else, but it just led to less security.'

War not only destroys people and infrastructure, war can also destroy the collective memory of an entire nation. 'Sudan's ancient civilisation is now being destroyed,' Ziada explains. Ever since the war began, historical sites have been destroyed, looted and set on fire. Soldiers of the RSF militia photographed themselves in a section of the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum where there are millennia-old mummies. In the library of Ahlia University in Omdurman, manuscripts and rare books disappeared.

Literature cannot end the war, of course, but it plays an important role, according to Ziada.

'The best thing literature, and art in general, can do for Sudan is to guard collective memory. To protect, guard, and archive that memory for future generations and be able to show it to the world later.'

'There are groups and websites that document heritage in a professional manner. International organisations are trying to put pressure on warring parties to protect historical sites because they are part of human civilisation.'

But there is also the personal artistic level. 'We are the sons of a country with a rich history in poetry, music, and other artistic expressions.'

In 2023, while the war in Khartoum was in full swing, the film Goodbye Julia was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. The film shows two faces of Sudan: one where war and death reign, and another in which art and culture flourish. "The role of the artist is to show the second face of the country," Ziada concludes, "because that is what will remain.

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