They once thrived on daily labor, rising with the dawn to head out to markets and communal hubs, awaiting requests from people to fix what time or man had ruined. But today, they face extraordinary circumstances as the war thrusts them into new fates, unfamiliar markets, and distant places where they have been forced to seek refuge—places where no one is eager to repair something constantly under threat by the enemy.
How do these craftsmen and artisans resist unemployment in wartime? And how do they navigate their new realities?
Mahmoud al-Qassas spent many long years in the city of Omdurman, working as a blacksmith and painter, molding iron and coating homes and walls. Mahmoud refined his skills and established his own workshop in Omdurman, which became the lifeline for him and his family. He held out in Omdurman for almost four months after the war began, living in a state of apprehension and fear, but gradually, he lost everything, including his blacksmith workshop. He left his dream buried in Omdurman and made his way to the city of Shandi, River Nile state, armed only with his strong arms and his skills in blacksmithing and painting.
Mahmoud described the construction scene in Shandi as weak and unable to accommodate the flood of craftsmen and artisans who arrived in waves of displacement with every intensification of the war. As a result, they suffered from unemployment and sporadic work. In his view, the city lacks large workshops and medium- to heavy-duty machinery that would speed up the pace of work and improve its quality.
“Wages are extremely low. In fact, there is a clear injustice being done to displaced workers despite their superior skills, dedication, and the high precision of their work,” said Mahmoud in an interview with Atar, painting a vivid picture of their plight,
“We sit for days, waiting for the gift of work, but it never comes.” Mahmoud has now found himself working as a labourer under the supervision of a contractor in construction, leaving behind the painting trade that once earned him a good living before the war.
“I fled to Shandi after four months of chronic unemployment in Omdurman, but things haven’t changed much,” Mahmoud says.
In Shandi, scattered blacksmith workshops remain active, but their scope is limited to small tasks such as crafting beds, home doors, and iron kiosks, as well as performing minor repairs for meager pay.
For Ibrahim Awad, who fled from Ad-Duroshab area north of Khartoum Bahri, the situation is different.
When the war broke out, Ibrahim was working in his blacksmith shop in Ad-Duroshab. He spent a grueling year unemployed, amid artillery fire and intense clashes in the volatile area. He decided to flee after a horrific arrest by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), during which they poured fuel over his head and threatened to burn him alive for refusing to unlock his bank account on his phone, where he received money transfers from his migrant brother to sustain himself while guarding the family home after their displacement.
“They blindfolded me, tied me up with ropes, and fired shots into the air to scare me, then doused my head and body with gasoline,” Ibrahim recounted to Atar. During his torture, shelling intensified in the area, and a shell landed nearby. The RSF members fled, leaving Ibrahim on the ground, blood oozing from his body and clothes.
“I nearly went blind,” he says. He survived, gathered his work tools, and made up his mind to flee, never to return.
A whole month passed as Ibrahim groped his way through a work environment free from war but not from unemployment. Gradually, the haunting fears of shelling and arrests began to fade, and with the help of some acquaintances, he finally found a job, albeit at half its actual worth. However, his employer delayed the payments, despite Ibrahim completing the work well ahead of schedule.
I own a workshop, have a professional name, and have over thirty years of experience, yet here I am, struggling to pay my rent
“I own a workshop, have a professional name, and have over thirty years of experience, yet here I am, struggling to pay my rent,” said Ibrahim sorrowfully. “In the evenings, I help another displaced friend at the cafeteria where he works, but curfews force us to close by nine o’clock, right at the peak of business.”
Between two eras
Craftsmen and artisans would usually gather every morning at labourers’ cafés. In Omdurman, they congregated north of its Grand Mosque, while in downtown Khartoum, they met at well-known cafés along Al-Jamhuria Street or around the Workers’ Club, and in Bahri, they filled the streets and alleys of its grand market. They left an indelible mark on the mornings of the capital’s markets, with the bustling noise of political discussions, football debates, and the flipping through of daily newspapers. After these ritualistic gatherings, they would set off to their daily tasks, dispersing across distant neighbourhoods.
Today, the historic gathering spots for labourers in the capital have become battlefields
Today, the historic gathering spots for labourers in the capital have become battlefields. RSF have overrun Omdurman market, Bahri market has been entirely burned to the ground, and fires have consumed the heart of Khartoum’s Al-Arabi market. All the shops, including the cafés that once sheltered the craftsmen from the ravages of time, have been looted.
A hardened tear glistens in the eye of “Uncle Hassan Awad” (78 years old) as he recalls the first day of the war.
“I hadn’t missed a single morning at the café in Al-Arabi Market for 40 years,” the veteran contractor told Atar. “That morning, I saw military vehicles and armoured tanks swiftly spreading across the streets. Soldiers were mounted on four-wheel-drive vehicles. At first, we thought it was just another military coup, but what followed was much worse, violent clashes, the sound of artillery, and the roar of heavy machinery filled the sky. Smoke billowed and bullets flew thick. Terrified, we took refuge in the shops and beneath the arcades.”
Uncle Hassan reassured his family by phone that he was safe, bid farewell to his workers and colleagues, and, amid a hail of bullets from all directions, managed to return home with great difficulty.
“Al-Arabi market, the workers’ cafés, and all our memories have burned down,” he told us. His wife passed away suddenly due to a medical emergency, exacerbated by the shutdown of most hospitals. Leaning on his lameness, reminder of an old work injury from falling off a high building, he was forced to flee to Wad Madani after the destruction of Al-Arabi Market in Khartoum. There, he found himself unemployed in the wake of the war. Though some of his students welcomed him warmly in Al-Jazirah state, offering him supervisory roles on some projects, Wad Madani eventually fell under RSF control, and Uncle Hassan prepared himself for yet another journey of displacement, accompanied by perpetual unemployment.
Pursuit in the Absence of Unions
The scene around Shandi Stadium and Moulid Square has changed since the city became a hub for displaced people seeking to restart their lives. The once desolate area is now teeming with mechanic workshops, spare parts shops, and dozens of parked cars, as the air fills with the scent of oils and the shouts of food vendors. Hundreds of displaced craftsmen that war has driven out of Khartoum, Wad Madani, Sinnar, and beyond, now fill this space.
They started from scratch, grappling with exorbitant and often illogical rental costs for shops, while facing constant harassment from local authorities, who repeatedly relocated them to new areas.
In Ad-Deem market of Shandi, the mechanic Kannan told Atar team, which conducted a field tour of the area, that he had to buy a whole new set of tools to resume his work, as the ones he left in Khartoum were lost. He transformed an abandoned shop into a bustling workshop that now accommodates about eight workers who fled with him from Kober neighbours, in Khartoum North. Kannan points out his neighbours at a rickshaw (tok-tok) repair shop, refugees from Al-Thawrat area of Omdurman, and lists others who came from Khartoum 3, Wad Madani, and Sinnar.
During Atar’s field visit, we met displaced mechanic Nasr al-Din Taha, who fled with his family from Bahri to Wad Madani. His workshop in the industrial area was looted, and he lost all his tools. In Wad Madani, Taha began recovering some equipment, working as a mobile mechanic in the city’s public market or under a tree, as he had no fixed place. Following the RSF invasion of Wad Madani last December, Taha moved to Al-Managil and then to Shandi, where he started anew with a mobile tool kit. He set up under another tree near Moulid Square, but local authorities continually harassed him and his colleagues, preventing them from settling in the area. They justified their actions by citing security concerns and the safety of the city, while labour unions and associations meant to protect and organise these workers remained absent.
Engineer Salah Abdalla, who owns a workshop and employs several mechanics and auto-electricians, proposed a solution in his conversation with Atar.
Temporary small workshops should be established for the displaced craftsmen and labourers from war-affected areas. This would reduce their homelessness, eliminate the need for authorities to impose fees on them, and stop their constant relocation
“Temporary small workshops should be established for the displaced craftsmen and labourers from war-affected areas. This would reduce their homelessness, eliminate the need for authorities to impose fees on them, and stop their constant relocation,” the engineer says.
With no government bodies organising, supporting, or accounting for the war-damaged workshops, the burden falls squarely on local and state authorities to provide professional aid.
The political struggles during the transitional period, even before the war, had already stifled all efforts to restore labour unions and enact protective laws for workers. At that time, labourers and unionists fought hard to reclaim their stolen rights and resist the tyranny of the former regime under the banners of employers’ associations and the organisations of the National Congress Party (NCP) regime. The outbreak of war dashed any remaining hope for organising the craftsmen across different trades and regions.
Union expert Mahjoub Kanari told Atar that the number of unregistered professionals far outweighs those enrolled in unions under the NCP regime. This left many vulnerable to exploitation by the previous regime’s proxies and deprived them of their rights while subjecting them to severe repression.
“Their lands, designated for workshops, were confiscated, and the authorities, along with false bodies claiming to represent them, took advantage of them.”
“There are hundreds of unregistered artisans, lacking protection, tools, and organisation both in times of peace and war, in mining areas and peripheral cities,” said Amar Al-Bagir, a former leader of the Sudanese Professionals Association, in an interview with Atar. He added that efforts to protect these craftsmen have been ongoing since 2020 but have achieved little progress.
“To safeguard them, their trades must be categorised, their wages regulated based on professional classification, and measures implemented to ensure fair pay and development opportunities, especially in occupational health and safety. Furthermore, safeguards should be established to protect their rights in cases of disability and work-related injuries, particularly in major contracting projects,” he explained.
“Historically, artisans have centered their activities around workers’ clubs, built through their own efforts, and around the outskirts of markets. The primary battle of the unions is how to protect and organise them, reclaim their clubs, institutions, and associations, and manage the facilities they built for themselves,” Al-Bagir told Atar, adding:
“After the war destroyed everything, the task of counting displaced workers, assessing the tools and workshops they have lost, compensating them in collaboration with donor bodies, and easing the war’s burden on them rests with the unions and labour associations. They must also track the displacement routes of these professionals, wherever they have sought refuge in safe cities and regions.”
