I feel the weight of all women.
Around my hand, a woman’s bracelet softly rests
I smell their fear on my clothes,
I make coffee but I drink their tears,
I do not sleep; we share nightmares.
I lost my ability to speak. I only scream now.
I wish I died before the war.
Our revolution is now under rubble.
Our revolution used to be on the streets,
But now,
Now, you can find it in cemeteries,
In the camps where walls are mothers’ clothes,
You can find it in a long exodus road that ends at the sea
Where some die from pain.
Amidst the echoes of our independence, we stand,
shackled by the shadow of our own kin’s occupation.
They rape us because we are not from the same tribe
They do not mind killing, raping, and displacing our children
They do not mind killing, raping, and displacing their children.
The earth, squeezed tighter than the gun’s cold bore,
Leaving behind only weapons, nothing more.
We reach for the sky and fear the flames,
We huddle together in homes and fear looting.
We tread the wall’s edge, dodging bullets’ flight,
On an endless journey,
All we remember is that life stopped on a Saturday.
From Sudan to a world that chose to turn away from its suffering, nearly a year after the outbreak of the April 15th conflict. A year burdened with millstones that ground the country down and tore it apart.
It was a year that stretched longer than eternity, a period during which we found ourselves shifting roles, from victims to perpetrators, and then to lifeless casualties in a relentless war for absolute power. Our lands transformed into battlegrounds for proxy ambitions, yet amidst the chaos, we languished in neglect, receiving little to no global attention and aid. The world’s conscience weighed heavy with tragedies and conflicts, yet its parliaments failed to act beyond condemning and turning away the growing numbers of refugees fleeing war, poverty, and exploitation. It was a year where hope, land, and sustenance were stolen from us, a year that robbed us of our children’s futures.
Approaching an international day dedicated to rights that are far from universal, and on “International Women’s Day,” we amplify the voices of women who dared to envision freedom, democracy, and peace in places where such ideals struggle to take root.
Amidst the constraints of family, society, and political exclusion, we cling to hope’s flicker for a brighter dawn, for ourselves and our people. Yet, in the shadows, we endure the harrowing toll of violence—murder, abduction, rape—while serving food to both civilians and soldiers. Our voices silenced, our throats slit under unfounded accusations of espionage.
In the depths of night, we archive our nightmares, scrounge for coins to purchase contraceptives, shed silent tears when alone, as our mothers adorn our hands with henna’s crimson hue, in a desperate bid to deceive our rapists into believing we are married.
We find solace and strength within the solidarity of women comrades in Congo, Gaza, Western Sahara, Yemen, Syria, and Libya, united by shared experiences of colonial dehumanisation and oppression. In the midst of this systemic war to eradicate our revolution and silencing our queer feminist voices, our utmost demand becomes a ceasefire, even at the cost of yielding to the dictates of the burgeoning imperial reign.
Amidst systematic starvation,
We are terrified of losing more comrades,
In the midst of a war and cheers for taking up arms and militarizing our peace,
In the midst of all these shackles,
We Sudanese women have never been silent and will never be silent
We hate March 8th, we hate the noise of false celebrations, we hate the claim of imperialist capitalism to empower women.
We only survive through our solidarity and our sisterhood,
And the path of internationalist revolutionary struggle.
We reject war
We reject militarization
We refuse armament
We reject March 8th
