Tens of thousands of people on both sides of Sudan’s brutal two-year civil war have sought safety in Uganda, and hundreds of those refugees have set up small businesses in a five-story commercial building in downtown Kampala run by Nasr Al Din Sandel.

Sudanese refugees, divided along ethnic lines, sometimes come to blows in the city’s streets. But inside the crowded Nyumba Kubwa—Swahili for Big House—Sandel ensures his tenants check their civil war at the door.

He breaks up brawls between Arab Sudanese and their Black rivals, and rescues refugees from both sides when they run into trouble with Ugandan authorities. 

A Black Sudanese himself, Sandel says he never holds it against the Arabs that they’ve been accused of attempting to wipe out his people. 

“I have never discriminated against anyone based on their tribal affiliations,” the 45-year-old said in his cramped office, where he also runs a travel agency. “We only deal with each other as Sudanese.”

Sudan erupted in violence in 2023 when the awkward partnership broke down between the country’s de facto president, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who had seized power in a coup, and his No. 2, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a one-time camel herder turned warlord. 

The fighting that followed between al-Burhan’s Sudanese army and Dagalo’s mostly Arab paramilitary, the Rapid Support Forces, has left the country’s capital in ruins, tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands facing starvation... read more + see pictures