Wearing loose clothes with guns in their pockets, a group of seven young men gather every night with a tray of tea on the terrace of one of their houses to guard their east Khartoum neighbourhood.
A breakdown in law and order in the capital amid fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and an availability of guns in part driven by those that can be taken from the bodies of dead soldiers, has led to an increase in armed robberies. All prisoners in the capital – including convicted murderers – have been released or escaped from prisons and, in the absence of police, groups of civilians banding together to protect themselves.
The men of el-Taif walk around in their area in twos or sometimes threes from sunset to sunrise. “We began doing this days after the beginning of the war when my neighbour was nearly robbed by two armed men who broke his window, but he had a bigger gun and he chased them away,” said Yousif al-Sammani, 37.
It is a story repeated across Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman where entire markets, factories and banks have been looted, with fridges, TV, food and cigarettes later sold off in the outskirts of the capital.
Mohamed Adam, 21, a former student who works at his father’s shop in al-Souq al-Shaabi market, set up an initiative with his friends to guard their neighbourhood. “Because of our activity, in the day and night we managed to reduce the cases of theft here,” he said.
The oldest among this 16-strong group is 25, the youngest, 17. Some of them patrol their area during the day and others the night, alternating their shifts.
The government said police special forces, the Central Reserve Forces, would be on the ground to protect civilians and their property, but the RSF has issued a statement warning them not to take part in the fighting. The CRF have been accused of human rights violations and the US put them under sanctions last year for their role in the killing of hundreds of peaceful protesters, mainly in Khartoum.
Then there are the guns. Sudan’s gun markets are open and there are reports of many people being able to get firearms from the dead soldiers whose bodies lie uncovered for days. “Men not only stole valuable items, but got guns from the dead soldiers on the streets,” said an Omdumran resident, Hanan Khamies.
In Omdurman’s biggest market, a few miles from the national TV and radio building, where fighting between the RSF and the army is taking place, the sound of bullets fired by shop owners to chase away thieves has become the norm.
“The number of thieves is bigger than the number of customers who come to buy,” one vegetable seller said in the market.
Ashraf al-Hajj, 43, lives not far from where the RSF has been stationed in Wad al-Bashir junction, where they have also created their own committee to protect their area.
“It has become impossible in some of the areas in Omdurman to walk around alone. You need to be with a group of people and at least one of you has to have a gun. The thieves are now armed. You can’t even go to the petrol station to fuel your car: you need to be with other men to protect you, so that’s why we set up this group to help protect our houses.”
Al-Hajj’s group is bigger: in every street they have five men, at least one of them with a gun. “We organised ourselves by putting one armed man in each group. They all remain awake and walking around till the morning,” he said. “Our lives have become upside down.”
