Hashtags, online appeals, Whatsapp groups, how-to videos: in Khartoum under the bombs and crossfire of the two opposing sides, solidarity is being organized on social media.

“Broadcast calls for help, requests for assistance and try to reach out” to those in need, Mouztaba Musa writes to his more than 200,000 Twitter followers.

Like many other Sudanese, locked in their homes with the internet the only window on the world, he is trying to help. In Khartoum since Saturday there have been shortages of everything: running water, electricity, food, medicine.

Solidarity is being organized through the hashtags #Needs_Khartoum or #Needs_Omdurman, with around 20,000 related posts made yesterday Wednesday alone.

On WhatsApp, a few hundred members of the “general needs in Khartoum” group report the shortages they have: Hulud needs baby milk, Hillam a car, another user, anonymous, a mobile charger to contact his relatives.

Others offer advice: what to put in one’s escape bag, which doctor to call, how to manage a panic attack?

Guidelines for the treatment of gunshot wound

The doctors’ union posted videos on Facebook of first aid to gunshot victims. This was filmed in 2019, during the “revolution” that led to the overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir after three decades in power.

Then the authorities, who had violently suppressed the pro-democracy demonstrations, had cut off the internet and telecommunications in order to prevent the international community from seeing the scenes of carnage.

However, now the two opposing generals prefer to fill social media with their propaganda.

“Monitor the situation in your area and describe it to avoid spreading rumours,” stress the resistance committees, small cores of residents created in each district during the 2019 uprising.

Sudan

In the city of 5 million people where confusion prevails and where shortages are increasing, these committees are calling on citizens to create “makeshift pharmacies for the wounded.”

Due to the fighting, nine hospitals in Khartoum have already suspended their operations, out of a total of 39 across the country, while those that remain open have shortages of medical equipment and health workers.

Apothecary or Safeway

On the Khartoum Medical website, doctors can register, stating their phone number and the hours they can travel or help the sick or injured over the phone.

With pharmacies closed most of the time for five days, many netizens are looking for insulin or plasma donors.

Khalid Saad suggests to his approximately 80,000 followers to organize in larger climates.

“Find a pharmacist, create a Whatsapp group and send them your prescriptions,” he suggests on Twitter. Then a volunteer can deliver the drugs to the patients on his motorbike and everyone shares the cost of the petrol.

Another post calls for an “ambulance as soon as possible.” “There are two bodies on 60th street, a rocket hit their car,” one user reports.

Under the scorching sun of Khartoum, one of the hottest cities in the world, a rotting corpse and the bacteria it may carry are terrorizing the residents.

“Those who want to leave Khartoum-2 district, leave immediately, go through press street, it’s open,” said a post on Twitter. But in Khartoum everything can change in an instant and this information “was valid at 12:43”, he emphasizes.