Separation

Being Sudanese abroad means living two lives at once: a life you build here in relative safety, and another you watch being torn apart every day through your phone screen — without warning; sometimes only with a “sensitive content” notice.

It’s not guilt as much as it is the burden of separation: your mind understands the catastrophe, but your heart holds on to the image of a world you left behind. Khartoum is not sitting still, waiting for your return; it is a city at war. What beloved places should I tell you about — their destruction or siege? Cultural centers? Theatres? Neighborhoods? Jabana spots? Bus stations? A specific couch or a courtyard? I’m not sure of the fate of any of them now, but I know that even if they still exist, they are threatened by a random shell as long as they remain in Sudan.

Through the internet, and without intentional harm from others, you witness violations of daily existence. It has become entirely possible to see a TikTok video of RSF fighters inside your home, or soldiers from the army shaving the head of a boy who happens to have the same unusual haircut you chose for yourself.

Cars have become tools of war — stolen only to be abandoned in another state. How do you process the city being declared a land of death through the slow bleed of epidemics? The crisis intensifies brutally: waves of malaria, cholera, and dengue fever ravage people, while you, like a house with large open windows facing the desert, watch sand bury your garden.

And then there is your deepest wound calling for your help — El Fasher, under a siege reminiscent of Gaza’s. Gaza, which already breaks your heart, and whose suffering you cannot even fully comprehend despite the death tolls, attack announcements, attempted invasions, and extreme hunger that pushes people to eat animal fodder. Suddenly, you understand something: a part of you dies as you watch this bleeding with helplessness. You know that a human struggling to survive gets used to anything after enough time.

What if this separation is becoming a shy sort of familiarity with a world of extermination? You don’t know how to feel about being better off than millions of Sudanese people facing hunger and direct violence. Do you have the right to talk about the challenges of renewing your residency, your rising rent, or the discrimination you face? Do you have the right to write about your feelings from outside Sudan?

It’s a complicated contradiction that pushes your emotions into a state of detachment. You do not deny the harm, loss, or destruction people are facing. But you are full — overflowing — with helplessness and anger. Your mind chooses to freeze the image of the world you left behind. Out of a desire to preserve that gentle Khartoum, that kind home, those familiar streets — a memory that serves as a temporary protective tent you can retreat to.

In my view, this detachment is not avoidance; it is a survival mechanism. Building a new world somewhere else requires a focus that cannot carry the weight of burning scenes every moment. We create a separation between the harsh reality shown to us every day and the quiet hope of returning — even if only to a preserved memory.

In the end, this duality is the price of exile: to succeed in building a personal hope abroad while paying for it by watching your homeland burn, holding onto the image of a beautiful world in your memory, hoping it might one day return.