BY Eiman Omer
Fadia, a daughter of El Fasher, was born in a city under siege — as it has been since the Fur Sultanate five centuries ago. Wars, invasions, and conquests have come and gone, yet little has changed: El Fasher remains under siege, only the beneficiaries shift. Fadia’s childhood has been nothing but displacement stories, the sound of gunfire, and endless waiting. She waited two full years to sit for her high school exams, as roads in and out of the city were blocked by the latest war.
What could “survival” possibly mean to Fadia? Born in a city that breathes only through emergency corridors and aid convoys? How can we comprehend survival in a city that erodes daily, where people live without food, without protection, without medicine, without regular schooling, without any horizon or plan? Survival is not only keeping the body safe from harm; it is also daily resistance: confronting psychological collapse, emotional numbness, the loss of one’s spirit, and forced displacement. Often, “survival” is imagined as reaching a safe shore, as if it were the end of the road. But we must ask: what comes after? What comes after leaving the warzone? After surviving with our bodies intact — if we survive at all?
Some women and girls make it to camps or areas that seem safer, only to face “choices” that are not choices: to offer their bodies, their children, or whatever remains of what they have — in exchange for a piece of bread, a dose of medicine, or a fleeting, false sense of safety. Crossing borders, where safety is imagined, only begins a new chapter of anxiety: grappling with loss, marginalization, and being made to feel inferior. One still needs identification papers, income, shelter, food, electricity, and medicine. During wartime and emergencies, the place of education in the hierarchy of survival priorities remains up for debate. Since the outbreak of war in Sudan on April 15, 2023, families and communities, both organized and unorganized, have been losing their members slowly. This loss is not always the result of shelling or direct gunfire; it is a slow, far-reaching loss: silent collapses, psychological disorders, physical exhaustion, and social fragmentation.
Survival is collective — and this is exactly what capitalist and neo-colonial systems try to dismantle. They erase its meaning, and thus erase its existence. Many of us, who survived war in the literal sense but not in its deeper meaning, now live in “deferred survival.” A state where there is no time to process or even acknowledge our emotions. But can survival be real if healing is ignored?
Chronic stress— living in constant fear and under permanent threat— attacks the brain and nervous system. Cortisol and adrenaline flood the body, leading to burnout. Anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and insomnia emerge. Physical pain follows: chest aches, stomach troubles, and exhaustion without cause. The grief of repeated losses of people, homes, memories, and social identity leaves deep scars on the psyche. In the collapse of health infrastructure, the lack of community-based psychological support, and the depletion of resources, mental health crises turn into an uncontrollable epidemic of life-threatening chronic conditions. They show up as life-threatening chronic conditions: suicide attempts, unsafe drug use, cardiovascular illnesses, sudden heart attacksand strokes at young ages, as well as nervous breakdowns.
This is how we lose people whose names never appear on lists of the dead. We see them on social media, mourn them, and silently wonder about their early departures. Medical explanations often ignore the political context. What does it truly mean to lose a friend to a heart attack before she is even thirty, and to continue living in deferred survival? Today, survival does not only mean staying alive away from immediate threats. It is a daily battle with capitalism, fascist policies, and systematic marginalization. Direct or indirect threats, whether physical, economic, or social, create constant tension that turns daily life into an endless struggle.
The army’s occupation of El Fasher’s fertile farmland — encircled by mountains and once rich for agriculture — is a systematic destruction of the city’s economic base. El Fasher, once with rare potential for self-sufficiency, has been transformed by militarization into a non-productive consumer hub — drained of resources and forced into dependency on its exploiters. This destroys the idea of people’s sovereignty over resources, turning residents from farmers and producers into reluctant buyers —even beggars for aid— trapped in endless hunger and exploitation. Under siege and repression, people are forced to pay cash for essentials in a context where banknotes have repeatedly lost value since the war began, and the banking system is out of service. The war economy does not only steal people’s savings; it robs them of their will to resist, pushing them to surrender to an imposed reality far removed from any notion of survival.
Emergency rooms and grassroots groups are paralyzed by security restrictions and a lack of resources. Arrest campaigns escalate, targeting youth, service providers, and human rights defenders— accused of espionage or collaboration with one party or another. This deepens the climate of fear and pushes communities into paralysis. The collapse extends to aid itself: medical and food services are weaponized as tools of repression and reward, given only to those loyal to certain governors. Marginalized groups are excluded, left to face their fate as state institutions dissolve into a repressive security apparatus.
More than 90% of children in Sudan are out of school, an explicit declaration of the total collapse of the future. In Khartoum, the capital’s educational infrastructure has been completely destroyed. Schools closed, universities looted, institutes demolished. Classrooms and lecture halls have been turned into shelters, military barracks, or rooms for torture and rape. Even if the war ends tomorrow, bringing education back will be a long and difficult struggle. Families have no income for schooling. In extreme poverty, hunger, and disease, education becomes a deferred necessity — a choice survival cannot afford.
Generations are forced out of educational and social systems, later stigmatized as ignorant and backward — generations deliberately impoverished. The undeniable conclusion: generations will follow, without knowledge, without tools, without opportunities to grow — and without the capacity to imagine how to rebuild what has been destroyed. This is a slow drain, invisible in news headlines, but written daily in our memories and in the lives of our children. Once more, I wonder: how can the children of today face tomorrow without education, without the tools for learning?
Survival is not just about life preserved, it is about collective power. To survive, we must name our enemies, confront them together, and pass on our stories so they cannot be erased. Survival is resistance, healing, and the audacity to imagine futures beyond the systems that seek to destroy us.