Sudan
Sudan’s lone caretaker protects ancient treasures from looting, write FT correspondents Andres Schipani and David Pilling, as the war creeps closer to an archaeological site with more pyramids than the whole of Egypt. “All the objects that have been stolen are unique pieces,” expert Amani Gashi said. “All the archeological sites are now at risk due to the war.”
Read the full story, with my Sudan pictures, here.
How is it for kids to flee their country from war and ethnic violence? What do you play with when there are no toys around? And how can you learn when there is no school in the refugee camp? For Samsam Magazine, I interviewed Aliyah (blue headscarf, 3rd photo) who fled from El Geneina, Darfur (in West Sudan).
More than 420,000 people have fled across the border as attacks by militias in West Darfur continue. Another 200,000 people are expected to follow. Yet, says one refugee, ‘the international community does nothing’.
To see the 20 pictures and read the stories of Darfuri refugees, click here.
In Egypt, the huge Sudanese population hosts hundreds of thousands of fleeing compatriots. Out of charity, but also out of self-preservation. I wrote down how that works for the Volkskrant.
After a "journey from hell", tens of thousands of Sudanese are trying to cross the border with Egypt. Women and children do not need a visa, but most men do. For the Volkskrant I traveled to the south of Egypt, where I spoke with torn families who are looking for safety.
The report, with beautiful photos by Rene Clement, is in the paper newspaper today, and online here.
Through lucrative deals with Gulf states, the Sudanese paramilitaries became so big, rich and powerful that they can now rival the Sudanese army.
My analysis of how the RSF benefited from the fighting in Yemen is published in today’s edition of De Volkskrant.
Japanese AFP photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba won the World Press Photo exactly two years ago, with a picture from Sudan depicting Mohamed, who was reciting a poem on a dark soccer pitch in Khartoum. The photo has brought Mohamed a lot: he’s now studying in Maastricht and hopes to one day become president of Sudan.
For Trouw, I made a reconstruction about how Mohameds life was turned upside down because of Chiba’s iconic photograph. Click on this link to read the piece (in Dutch).
In ‘Crisis Update’, a webcast by refugee organization Stichting Vluchteling that focuses on the conflict in Tigray, I spoke about our trip to the refugee camps in Eastern Sudan. In conversation with Dutch presenter Hadassah de Boer, I shared some insights on what it was like to work there. Check out the whole interview below.
For my first Financial Times assignment, I photographed the pyramids of the royal city of Meroë, a site of the Kushite kingdom dating from the eighth century BC, are smaller than their Egyptian counterparts in Giza, at roughly 30m high.
But there are many more, about 100 some 200km from Khartoum, though their tops were blown up in 1834 by Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini as he plundered their contents.
The site is largely unvisited by outsiders, apart from the odd group of diplomats, aid workers, and young residents of Khartoum. Stepping alone into one of the world’s greatest archaeological sites may be marvellous for one lucky visitor, but it is also testament to the sluggish state of Sudanese tourism.
“This is the biggest concentration of pyramids in the world. You don't see such a number in one place anywhere else,” says Mahmoud Suliman Bashir, the archaeologist who manages the Island of Meroë World Heritage Site. “It is unique in that you have a site just for yourself,” he adds, comparing the experience with that of other sites with pyramids in Egypt and Mexico, usually teeming with global tourists.
Read the full piece by the FT’s Andres Schipani by following this link, or read more in the posts on my Instagram profile.
When I was in Sudan, I had the privilege of working on an assignment for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize-winners: the World Food Programme. WFP commissioned 32 pictures that I have taken in refugee camps Village 8 and Um-Rakoba.
The United Nations has used some of the images on their UN News channel and OCHA daily briefings, which you can see below. More pictures taken in Sudan can be seen on the website of the World Food Programme and on the website of British newspaper The Independent.
WFP / Arete / Joost Bastmeijer
Fleeing the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, tens of thousands of people walked days to get to neighboring Sudan, where they are staying in crowded refugee settlements. On assignment for British newspaper The Telegraph, I traveled with Africa correspondents Saskia Houttuin and Will Brown to eastern Sudan, where we were some of the first journalists to talk to refugees.
The Tigrayans told us horrifying stories, about indiscriminate bombings, machete attacks, decapitations and executions. But it’s hard to check if their stories are true, as in Tigray, the electricity and communication services have been cut off for weeks. On top of that, journalists are not allowed to enter the region to do their work independently. And so the only way to get an idea of what might have happened in Northern Ethiopia, is to talk to the many refugees that we found in the camps.
To read some of the stories that Will and Saskia wrote for their newspapers, click through the screenshots below. To read the story I wrote for Trouw’s De Verdieping segment, click here. To hear the radio interview I did for ‘Met Het Oog Op Morgen’, in conversation with Wilfried de Jong, click here. To hear the conversation I had in the ‘NOS Radio 1 Journaal’ with Jurgen van den Berg, together with Africa correspondent Bram Vermeulen, click play on the video underneath the newspaper clippings (or click here). To listen to NOS podcast ‘De Dag’ about the situation in the Sudanese camps, click play on the player below.
In addition to the work I did for The Telegraph, NOS and Trouw, I also worked for NGOs, who are working on the ground to help the Ethiopian refugees. To see some of the work I did for World Food Programme (WFP), click here. The photos I took for Save The Children can be seen here. To see the video interviews and pictures I created for Dutch refugee NGO Stichting Vluchteling, click here. And to see the pictures I took for ZOA, click here.
