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In June 2023, Nader Shilkawi, a thirty-four-year-old journalist working with the Sudan Radio and Television Corporation, was returning home from a reporting trip when he was seized by members of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. The group—a party in a brutal civil war that has torn the country apart since April 2023—accused the reporter of working with the Sudanese army to monitor its movements. “I was subjected to torture in detention,” Shilkawi said recently via a WhatsApp message. “I was beaten. I received threats.”
He was eventually released, after three days of detention. But Shilkawi’s story is not so uncommon. The Sudanese civil war, now in its third year, has left more than 150,000 people dead and an estimated fourteen million more displaced. It has also quietly become one of the most dangerous conflicts in the world for journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, at least nine Sudanese journalists have been killed in the line of work so far; two more have disappeared, and seventeen have faced imprisonment or detention—all likely undercounts, owing to the challenges of confirming the data. More than four hundred reporters have been forced into exile. Unlike similarly brutal conflicts in places like Gaza and Ukraine, there has been limited international media attention on the Sudanese war.
“The situation is so unpredictable that journalists often do not know whether they will survive the next day, let alone report freely,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa regional director. “Reporters face the constant risk of arrest, injury, or death—whether through direct targeting or indiscriminate violence. Many live in hiding, have stopped publishing, or operate under pseudonyms.”
Hanan Adam, a journalist at the Ministry of Culture and Information in the Gezira state and a correspondent for the local newspaper Al-Maidan, was killed, along with her brother, in December 2024 by elements of the Rapid Support Forces. In March of that same year, Khaled Balal, a journalist and media director at the Sudanese Supreme Council for Media and Culture, was shot and killed by gunmen suspected to be part of the Sudanese Armed Forces while at his residence in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
Ezaldeen Arbab, the head of the Sudanese Journalists’ Association, a Uganda-based group for exiled Sudanese reporters, says it often feels like the belligerents are waging an undeclared war against journalists. “Journalists are harassed, intimidated, and even intentionally killed for simply doing their job,” Arbab said. “Many media outlets in Khartoum and other cities have been looted or burned down.” Both sides restrict media coverage of the areas they control: the paramilitary force only allows access to journalists who speak in its favor, and the Sudanese army hinders media coverage of its own territory, including at camps for internally displaced people. Recently, the army shortened the duration of media permits from one year to one week, Arbab said.
The warring factions have also systematically targeted the infrastructure of journalism, according to watchdog groups. CPJ says armed groups have raided, occupied, or destroyed key television and radio stations, particularly in Khartoum. Printing presses have stopped working due to looting, fuel shortages, and damage. Most independent newspapers have ceased operations, and several outlets have relocated abroad or shut down entirely. “Notably, twenty-three print newspapers have completely shut down, ending print journalism in Sudan altogether,” Qudah said. “The country’s primary telecommunications infrastructure has also collapsed in many areas, cutting off journalists’ access to the internet and mobile networks. Journalists still reporting are doing so under increasingly dire and improvised conditions, often without pay, resources, or security.” Nader Shilkawi said that after the Rapid Support Forces seized control of the radio station where he worked, much of his equipment was destroyed. “I lost my journalistic work and have been unable to support my family.”
Oussama Bouagila, the North Africa regional advocacy officer for Reporters Without Borders, said limited international attention toward the Sudanese conflict has led to a feeling of “isolation” for local journalists. “The war in Sudan imposes specific challenges: complete lack of protective structures for journalists due to the collapse of the state and its institutions; multiplicity of threat actors without international protection or monitoring; and lack of technical and logistical infrastructure, making it difficult to access the internet or use modern tools for documentation and dissemination,” Bouagila said.
Hassan Ahmed Berkia, one of the founders of the Sudanese Journalists’ Network, a seven-hundred-member professional organization founded in 2008 to track abuses committed against journalists in Sudan, has felt that isolation deeply. He was out of the country when the war began and hasn’t considered it safe enough to go back. “As an independent journalist and someone who monitors violations against the press, I became a target [and] unwelcome by both sides of the conflict,” Berkia said in a message. “My return to Khartoum at that time was extremely dangerous.”
Today, Berkia is stuck in Uganda, watching the tragedy from afar. He has also lost several friends and colleagues to the ongoing war, including a mentor, Muawiya Abdel Razek, a freelancer who was killed along with three siblings in a Rapid Support Forces raid in June 2024. “Frankly, I am suffering deeply,” he said. “I feel as though I’m fighting on multiple fronts, with no clear idea of what the coming days will bring. My family has been scattered: some are in my village in the far north of Sudan; others are in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and different Gulf countries. I am currently experiencing the worst psychological state.”
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