War has trapped Sudan’s Arab nomads on the margins of survival, confining once-mobile families outside the central city of al-Obeid.
Gubara al-Basheer remembers crossing desert routes with camels, freely moving between markets, water sources and grazing lands.
Since fighting erupted in 2023, nomads have been stranded, exposed to banditry and escalating ethnic hostility.
The war between General Abdel Fattah al Burhan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces has displaced nearly 14 million people nationwide.
It has also fuelled ethnic violence, famine and disease, shattering systems that governed land access and migration routes.
Researcher Ibrahim Jumaa said those fragile arrangements once sustained livelihoods and community relations.
Al-Obeid, capital of North Kordofan state, has seen some of the conflict’s heaviest fighting.
Residents say online-driven hate speech linked to the war has left communities feeling rejected and unsafe.
“We used to move as we wished. Now no side accepts you,” al-Basheer said.
Livestock theft by armed bandits has further crippled nomads, whose animals are their primary source of survival.
“If we try to move, we get robbed,” said shepherd Hamid Mohamed.
Jumaa said Sudan needs law enforcement and reconciliation efforts to repair a social fabric torn apart by war.
