SUDANESE MOTHER’S TERROR IN AL-FASHIR

A mother shelters her children as bullets tear through the air around them. Her trembling arms become the only shield they have. This single scene captures the reality faced by women in Darfur today, where motherhood has been forced to become a frontline against a genocidal war. The fear that haunts these children will not disappear when the gunfire stops. It will follow them into adulthood, shaping their memories, their identities, and their futures.

Darfur knows too well what genocide and ethnic cleansing looks like. The wounds of what happened two decades ago, when more than 300,000 people were killed, never healed. And now the same forces responsible then, the Janjaweed, renamed as the Rapid Support Forces, are once again carrying out the same horrors. But this time they are not backed by the Sudanese state. They are backed by the United Arab Emirates.

This is just one of many harrowing videos circulating online, but one that everyone can relate to because the bond between a mother and her children is universal. Even without words, everyone understands the terror in her eyes and the instinct to protect at all costs.