A photo essay from Khartoum and Berber
April 2023-ongoing
I couldn’t take any more photos after this;
it simply became too dangerous
vلم ألتقط المزيد من الصور، فقد كان الأمر خطيرًا
We knew we had to leave
علمنا أنه يجب أن نغادرر
The war began not with a warning but with the sound of explosions on the morning of April 15th. In Khartoum, his hometown, conflict between the Sudanese Army and the RSF militia erupted overnight, splintering his sense of normalcy. It was sudden and surreal. “One moment, we were living; the next, surviving,” the photographer recalls. This photo essay traces Hassan’s family’s journey from the heart of a collapsing city to refuge in Berber, northern Sudan.
A place he has always associated with comfort, now transformed
by crisis. Through displacement, reunion, mourning, and resilience, these images reflect the layered realities of those forced to flee and the spaces that hold both the weight of war and the possibility of renewal. Two years after the photographs were taken, Sudan is still at war. Hassan has left Berber for the temporary capital (Port Sudan) for work. He makes the seven-hour journey back to Berber whenever time allow.
My family met us at the roadside with water, sweets, and tears of relief
استقبلنا الأهل في الشارع بالماء والحلوى،
وبفرحة الوصول إلى الديار بأمان
After the terror of our escape, simply arriving felt like a miracle
بعد الرعب الذي واجهناه في أثناء الخروج،
كان الوصول بمثابة معجزة بالنسبة لنا
Ogawa Kazumasa
