Marhaba,

This is the 52nd issue of Atar English, published by the Sudan Facts Center for Journalism. It reaches you every two weeks, bringing reporting from across Sudan.

More than three years into the war, Sudan is drifting toward a reality shaped by parallel governments, fragmented institutions, militarized borders, and shrinking civic space. The war is no longer only destroying institutions. It is producing parallel systems of authority that increasingly control movement, aid, trade, and civic life.

In our opening investigation, Between the Hammer and the Anvil, we examine how humanitarian organizations have become trapped between Sudan’s competing centers of power. As the RSF-backed Ta’sis authorities seek to institutionalize parallel governance structures in Darfur and Kordofan, humanitarian actors are increasingly forced into impossible political calculations simply to continue reaching civilians. Aid delivery is no longer only a logistical challenge, it is now a struggle over legitimacy, recognition, and control. The danger extends beyond organizations themselves. Millions of civilians now risk becoming hostages to a battle over sovereignty fought through permits, registrations, accusations, and access restrictions.

While regional powers compete for influence, ordinary livelihoods continue collapsing under the weight of war. Our report on livestock trade documents how conflict has violently redrawn western Sudan’s grazing routes, markets, and migratory patterns. For generations, pastoral communities relied on seasonal systems that connected Darfur, Kordofan, and the Nile Valley through intricate economic and ecological networks. Today, insecurity, displacement, closed routes, and militarized territories have shattered those systems. The result is not only economic devastation, but the breakdown of social and migratory systems that sustained millions for generations.

The damage is not limited to livelihoods and institutions. Historical memory itself is also disappearing. In Barbar, one of northern Sudan’s oldest historic towns, archaeological sites and historical landmarks are steadily disappearing beneath urban encroachment, official neglect, and institutional collapse. The destruction described in A Heritage Unprotected reflects a deeper tragedy facing Sudan during wartime: a country struggling not only to preserve lives, but also to preserve the physical remnants of its own historical continuity. In moments of prolonged conflict, heritage often becomes invisible until it disappears completely.

Sudan’s internal fragmentation is also becoming increasingly regional. In Rift Between Neighbours, we trace how Ethiopia’s position has evolved from cautious observation into alleged direct entanglement within the conflict. Sudan’s war increasingly reflects a wider regional confrontation stretching across the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, involving the UAE, Eritrea, Egypt, and competing security alliances. Borders once viewed as peripheral have become strategic corridors for weapons, military alliances, and geopolitical pressure. Sudan is no longer only experiencing a civil war. It is increasingly becoming an arena for wider regional rivalries.

Finally, this issue closes with an opinion essay examining how American political satire often transforms imperial violence into entertainment. Rather than treating war as the product of one individual politician, the piece argues for confronting the broader systems that normalize violence while distancing democratic societies from responsibility for its consequences.

Together, these reports trace the widening consequences of Sudan’s war beyond the battlefield itself. They show how conflict is reshaping borders, institutions, markets, humanitarian work, and collective memory, while also revealing the fragile local efforts attempting to resist total collapse.

Sudan’s war is usually measured through territorial control and military developments. But many of its deeper consequences are unfolding more quietly, through the collapse and reshaping of institutions, livelihoods, and social life itself.

We conclude this issue, as usual, with our economic bulletin tracking the prices of key food commodities, exchange rates, and gold prices amid Sudan’s continuing economic turmoil.

Atar Editorial Team