Women ‘first to suffer’ under siege, first to step up as frontline responders in Sudan

When Tahani Al-Numeiri heard the first explosions in Khartoum, her hometown, war seemed so remote that she assumed they were celebrations from a nearby wedding. It was the morning of 15 April 2023, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had just turned their guns on the army.Large-scale conflict had only ever been either something that happened to others, or the stuff of fiction. “I never imagined my life would turn out just like in the movie,” she says.Yet for her and millions of Sudanese people, it came knocking on their front door as the war between rival militaries erupted three and a half years ago, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In the face of mass displacement, hunger, and psychosocial trauma, some women – spotlighted by gender equality agency, UN Women – rolled up their sleeves and emerged as key frontline responders.Inside besieged KhartoumMs. Al-Numeiri and her family were one of the many who found themselves trapped in areas taken under siege. In their case, they got stuck in Khartoum, which was disputed between the two main combatants – the RSF and the military government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Ms. Al-Numeiri, a journalist and activi...