The ongoing conflict in Sudan has pushed millions to the brink of famine, threatening to devastate an entire generation. Despite the severe humanitarian crisis, global awareness remains limited. In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Dr. Osman Hamdan and Umniya Najaer about the long history behind these events, the people and groups involved, and the roles that foreign governments and international organizations like the IMF have played. Importantly, we learn how civil society groups are bringing a form of mutual aid and support to the people of Sudan where the national government, warring factions, and international humanitarian organizations have utterly failed.

Dr. Osman Hamdan is a graduate of the University of Khartoum, Sudan, and holds a PhD in forestry economics from the Dresden University of Technology.  He is a longtime pro-democracy fighter and activist. 

Umniya Najaer is a doctoral candidate in the Program in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University where she studies Black Feminist Thought and the Black Radical Tradition.  Her poetry chapbook Armeika(2018, Akashic Press) explores experiences of the Sudanese-American diaspora and the unofficial government torture sites known as Biyout al-Ashbah, or ghost houses.

https://mtl.stanford.edu/people/umniya-najaer

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Photo credit: VOA (Public Domain)