The Nuba Mountains have long been a place of hard choices. Once on the front lines of the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan, they are now controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). When Sudan’s civil war erupted, the Nuba Mountains became a refuge. Some 1 million people fled there, forming camps that sprang up almost overnight. For a time, it was one of the few places in Sudan that felt relatively safe.
That safety is now unravelling.
Last year, the SPLM-N announced a surprise alliance in the Rapid Support Forces, Sudan’s most feared paramilitary. The biggest rebel coalition in Sudanese history gives the RSF strategic territory, and the SPLM-N political leverage.
But it also puts local communities in danger. Drone strikes are increasing as the RSF fights the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the area. Schools and hospitals have been hit. Until recently, the RSF had been committing atrocities against the Nuba communities it now calls partners. Survivors of massacres must live alongside their tormentors, fending for themselves in villages and displacement camps.
How Sudan’s war continues, or ends, will be determined by the dynamics in the Nuba Mountains. Photojournalist Guy Peterson and writer Sophie Neiman will travel across the remote territory to report on this new phase in the conflict, and its skyrocketing human cost.
