As a child growing up in Khartoum, the city always struck me as sleepy and dark — power cuts were frequent, and the oppressive heat infused everything with a sticky torpor. Unlike Cairo to the north or Nairobi to the south, Khartoum did not have that frenetic energy or drama.
Even its military coups were lethargic and bloodless. Apparently there were tanks, but the streets were empty. We all went to bed early with the vague knowledge that something dramatic had happened, but could see no sign of it.
People work from offices set up in rented ex-family homes, at desks in converted bedrooms, their bathrooms en suite and inappropriately ornate, clearly picked out by some banished housewife who never thought the family would fall on hard times and have to lease out their home. There are few public spaces for people to mingle, but the poor and the rich do mix in open-air street markets to buy their groceries. Khartoum has an almost benign spirit, but hides a sinister secret. In addition to this concentration of interests, Khartoum has simply never really diffused power and resources to the peripheries.
Partly because both were scant, so the capital took precedence, but mostly because the elites in power were replicated from greater Khartoum elites and their extended networks, which did not stretch into the vast expanse of the rest of the country. The Sudanese inheritors of colonial power were a posh bunch — tertiary-educated or army-trained, dressed in suits and sunglasses, hoisting the Sudanese flag above the presidential palace on the bank of the Nile on the day of independence.
The hope was that the combination of these privileged sons would, from elite Khartoum, launch a nation-building exercise. But since independence in , Sudan has been locked into a pattern of military coups and weak civil government, none of which has ever managed to create enough political consensus to establish durable democracy. There is always a sense that governments are on the clock, on borrowed time, until a popular rising or a military coup unseats them.
This is reflected in the attitude of incumbent politicians, whose eyes are not on their legacy or the peaceful transfer of power, but on how they can establish themselves as quickly as possible and reap the maximum reward from their tenure. Before the secession of the south of the country after a long and bloody civil war, Khartoum seemed like a happily diverse city, but a closer look betrayed hierarchies and divisions. Khartoum, over the years, in its sleepy fug, presided over the longest civil war in African history between the north and south of the country, and the death and displacement of millions in Darfur and the Nuba mountains.
Culturally, Khartoum is monolithically Arab and Muslim, with a watered-down version of a Sudanese urban identity. Instead of Khartoum becoming a melting pot for all the different ethnicities and cultures of the country, the Star Wars-bar version of an African city where all came to drink and mingle, then make their fortunes, it took off their edges and conformed them into blandness.
The relationship between the global city and its hinterland is one that usually glorifies the former as a dynamo of change, dragging the rest of the country along with it economically, socially and culturally. For updates, please contact the liaison. Recently Sudan was rolled by massive dictatorship regime that they use Sudan different races to separate the components of community from each other they start war every where more than three million died and uncounted number of refugees the separation of south Sudan was one of the major damages they done.
MISSION Reorganize Sudanese youth group in Khartoum to be very active in process of peace building using all the available cultural heritage and art music sports by organizing spirit of competition and to do good efforts for your people and community making sure that they will get happens when they make others happy. I attended a festival we organize to celebrate international peace day in Khartoum… More than three teams came to share with us people from different places attended to celebrate this day.
My father was an activists against military government at that time so he left for the UK and from there to UAE. It was a great chance to have an idea about different nations and many other cultures. Khartoum or Khartum is the capital and largest city of Sudan. The city is also the capital of the state of Khartoum.
The city, both the old part and its newer extensions, is laid out mostly in a grid. Omdurman has a more Middle Eastern atmosphere with maze-like streets and is home to the huge Souq Omdurman. Bahri is largely industrial and residential. Is the main gateway into Sudan by air. The airport is served by various European, Middle Eastern and African airlines. Go early as the airport can get a bit chaotic.
Be prepared for long waits and queue cutting. Immigration checks and other security checks can also take a long time. No departure tax should be paid anymore, as it's included in a ticket price.
Getting to town: the airport is located close to the city in Al-Amarat. Taxi fare from Khartoum airport to city was a fixed SDG in You can also walk out to the main road about m from the airport terminal and catch minibuses that cruise along the road. Alternatively you can book a metered taxi. The chaotic Souq al-Shaabi used to be the main bus terminal for long distance south-bound buses in Khartoum, but a new terminal Again, there are no buses to southern Sudan.
Buses to Atbara depart from Rail services to Khartoum are limited, but investment have brought hopes of a rejuvenation of train travel.
Older, more infrequent trains run from Port Sudan , Wadi Halfa - for connections with ferries from Egypt - and even Nyala. There main station is The main tarred road goes south from Khartoum to Wad Medani then east to Gedaref for the Ethiopian border at Gallabat , Kassala for the Eritrean border, which is closed and then to Port Sudan. South from Khartoum, a road also goes to El-Obeid, which then continues west towards the Chadian border via Darfur, which is a bit dangerous to use.
From the north, the road comes in from Wadi Halfa via Atbara. Khartoum is both easy and difficult to get around. It is easy in that much of the city is laid out on a grid, with long straight roads and the airport and Nile as easy reference places. It is difficult in that the city or indeed the 3 cities are very spread out, making walking a long and tiring option. These come in three varieties; bright yellow and often beaten up Toyota Corollas Model , small 6-seater minivans, and more modern metered taxis.
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