Marhaba, 

This is the 56th issue of Atar English, published by the Sudan Facts Center for Journalism. It reaches you every two weeks with reporting from across Sudan.  

War redraws maps. It creates new frontlines, closes old roads and forces people to move. But it also produces something less visible: borderlands. These are not simply the edges between countries. They are places where different authorities overlap, where economies are reinvented, where communities negotiate coexistence, and where survival depends on movement as much as belonging. 

Our opening report takes us to Riqebat, on the Sudan–South Sudan border, where a seasonal market continues to function despite the war. Here, peace committees mediate disputes, traders navigate roadblocks and taxation, and local communities compete for increasingly scarce resources while preserving fragile relationships built over decades. The story reveals a border that is not merely a line separating two states, but a living political and economic landscape sustained by the people who cross it every day. 

Borders appear differently elsewhere in this issue. In Kulbus and Ar-Ratj, they emerge through displacement, insecurity, and the shifting limits of everyday life. In Kordofan, they are marked by the uncertain boundary between a promising agricultural season and one threatened by conflict, disrupted trade and climate. Each story shows how people continue to adapt even as the ground beneath them changes. 

The issue also looks beyond geography. Women entrepreneurs are crossing another kind of frontier, building businesses amid displacement and economic collapse, often becoming the primary providers for their families. Their experiences remind us that rebuilding begins with a series of practical decisions made under extraordinary pressure. 

Our Sudan Weekly News and Price Bulletin complete the picture. Together, they remind us that the stories we report are not isolated events but parts of a larger transformation affecting markets, livelihoods, and daily life across the country. 

The borderlands of Sudan are often described as remote. Yet they are increasingly where the country’s most important questions are being worked out: how people trade when institutions fracture, how communities maintain peace while armed groups remain present, how families rebuild livelihoods after displacement, and how ordinary life persists when certainty disappears. 

Perhaps the borderland is no longer only a place. It has become a condition of Sudan itself. 

Thank you for reading 

The Atar Editorial Team