The Washington, DCbased Sudanese womens rights activist Niemat Ahmadi cant stop watching the footage.
Nor can her friend and fellow activist Sadya Eisa Dahab.
RALLYING CRYAhmadi demonstrating against genocide in Darfur in 2009.
RAISING THE STAKESNiemat Ahmadi, founder of the Darfur Women Action Group, speaking in Washington, DC, in 2019.
The challenge for Ahmadis organization now is desperate.
Two decades ago, the Darfur genocide became a cause celebre.
The fight is not from outside.
RALLYING CRYAhmadi demonstrating against genocide in Darfur in 2009.
Even all the international NGOs who are working in Sudan, they left.
Neither general has fought humanely.
But this war is one that is being waged on civilians.
HOME FRONTPhotographer and filmmaker Hassan Kamil captures life on the ground in Sudan.
And they would be the good guy.
Her group is the best at getting the word out.
I would follow Niemat wherever she would lead me.
HILLSIDE VIEWA landscape outside the city of Kadugli in Sudan photographed by Hassan Kamil.
Most of her neighbors were farmers, growing cash crops like grain, and Ahmadis parents did the same.
Ahmadi loved to pick tomatoes and cucumbers with her brothers when she wasnt in school.
We also had gardens full of fruits and vegetables, she says.
WOMEN TOGETHERAhmadi, second from left, with Voice of America journalists Nadia Taha, Simegnish Yakoye, and Amina Aliyu, photographed in May 2023.
My childhood was: come home from school, throw down your bag, and run to the gardens.
I was the first among my sisters to go to college, Ahmadi says with pride.
I wanted to get as much education as I could.
I wanted to do things.
Her parents were supportive; her father especially urged her to go to college.
I felt like I had to pay back when I graduated, she says.
The violence continued when she returned to Khartoum to earn her masters in sustainable development.
She took photos of victims and of their burned homes and villages and met with aid groups.
It all helped: A massive advocacy movement began taking hold around the world.
She remembers being excited by how effective her work was.
I would send information to people in the US and they would go protest, Ahmadi recalls.
It was Niemat who really made it into a movement that included Darfuris.
Before that, it was a collection of people who were mostly Europeans and Americans.
Niemat was a huge inspiration to everybody.
I was devastated to leave.
I felt guilty, she says.
In Kenya she applied to a Columbia University fellowship through the Ford Motor Companyand won it.
She decided to make the US her home, where shed apply for asylum after her fellowship ended.
Her pain at leaving Darfur drove her to action.
I wanted to do everything possible.
I think between 2007 and 2008, I traveled to 23 states.
By 2009, shed founded DWAG.
We have a government that does not think the people of Darfur are worth saving, Stanton says.
Khair describes conditions in the capital as especially dire.
Khartoum is completely gone, she says.
And I just think, Well, you might care about more than one conflict at a time.
Meanwhile, Egypt and Iran are supporting the SAF.
Khair fears the war could last for years to come.
In September she spoke with Amal Clooney at a panel during the UN General Assembly.
Ahmadi had, in fact, rushed to the UN from a delayed train.
I never wished to live to see this, Ahmadi told the room.
We appeal to ordinary citizens and those of you who are policy makers.
Be the voice of the people of Darfur who have been silenced.
Clooney met Ahmadi in 2021 when Clooney represented victims of the Darfur genocide at the ICC in The Hague.
Niemat was a great ally on the case, Clooney says.
She shames us all into doing more.
Weeks after the panel, Ahmadi spoke before the Security Council on the pervasiveness of sexual violence in Darfur.
And I dont think this is news to this Council.
But President Biden has said nothing so far about Sudan.
The African Union also has done little beyond suspending Sudan and calling for a cease-fire.
I do think if there is accountability, that will be a deterrent.
Ahmadi went home to Darfur in 2021 after 16 years away.
Her voice becomes soft when she talks about her trip.
You see the level of destruction.
Every single home has lost multiple people.
But people were generous, bringing gifts to her mothers home.
I broke all my rules, Ahmadi says, laughing.
Im not a dessert person, but I ate all kinds of desserts.
They still live near her, in the DC area.
So I have created a small family here, she says.
The Sudanese people, surviving on the ground, are what keep her and other activists inspired.
Whats amazing is the way women and young people step up, at the risk of their own lives.
While the bombing is happening, theyre feeding the wounded.
Theyre taking people to hospitals, Ahmadi says.
