Mark Weston 21 Jun But across the way is the Shendi detention centre where people are tortured and others disappear. Khartoum β I moved to Khartoum in September. A hot wind blew dust in my face and plastic bags around my ankles. The temperature was in the high 30s.
Above, in a pale sky, kites wheeled lethargically, searching the streets and yards for scraps. I took shelter from the blazing sun under a tree, where a brightly-robed woman sitting behind a brazier served me sugary black tea with a sprig of mint.
On all sides was dereliction. The crumbling pavements, piles of garbage, and old cars abandoned to sink into the street amid drifts of dust from the desert spoke of a country that had been left to decay.
Here there was no regeneration, only desiccation. Dead dogs and cats on the roadside took months to disappear. The sewers leaked, leaving stinking pools of black filth. The sewage system dates from when Khartoum had a few hundred thousand inhabitants. Now its population has grown to five million. Fixing the system would cost millions of dollars, and even if the government had the will, it no longer had the means. With oil for a while offering easy pickings, agriculture, once prolific along the Blue and White Nile and in the fertile eastern and southern states, had been left to wither.
There was no international ATM in the whole country. Cash was so scarce that strict withdrawal limits were imposed, and Sudanese had to queue for hours to get the equivalent of a few dollars from their bank accounts. Seventy percent of its budget was spent on the security forces.
