Since April 2023, more than a half-million people have been displaced in Sudan due to fighting between two armed forces who were once aligned. The story of how the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces turned on each other, with devastating consequences for Sudan’s civilians, can be traced back to 2013 when a group of dissidents were told by their interrogators to ride a bicycle drawn with chalk on the wall of a Sudanese jail.  

Detained for providing legal support to torture survivors, Human Rights Watch researcher Mohamed “Mo” Osman was introduced to the power structures that have shaped today’s conflict. In “The Chalk Bicycle,” host Ngofeen Mputubwele takes listeners through a decade that began with conflict, then saw the ousting of a dictator and great hopes for democracy only to be plunged back into conflict again.  

Mohamed Osman: Researcher, Africa Division at Human Rights Watch 

Christopher Tounsel: Associate Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies and Director of African Studies Program at the University of Washington