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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Exiles return to rebuild post-Bashir Sudan

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KHARTOUM: After 33 years in exile, El Sadig Mohamed gave up the easy life in Canada to return to help rebuild Sudan as it emerges from three decades of rule.


“After the revolution... I thought it’s the right time to come back... despite the luxury people enjoy in the West,” said Mohamed, who now heads the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company’s health and environment department.


“It’s my country and I have to do it.”


The SMRC supervises exploration, production and taxation of Sudan’s mining sector, notably its star asset, the gold mines.


Ousted president Omar al Bashir ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years until his overthrow in April 2019 after months of youth-led street demonstrations.


“The Bashir regime, for 30 years, destroyed everything,” said the 55-year-old civil engineer and ex-University of Calgary professor, who came home in November, six month’s after Bashir was toppled.


“I believe it is my duty to take part in... building a new Sudan.”


Expert help is needed. Sudan’s economy is in crisis, laid low by long years of civil war under Bashir’s rule, US sanctions and the 2011 secession of the oil-rich south.


SMRC’s director-general, Mubarak Ardol, was in exile for eight years.


His home in Sudan’s southern Nuba Mountains was attacked by government forces, and Ardol had led rebel forces against them.


He fled to Uganda in 2011. “I thought the regime would not last long. We worked with all our might to overthrow the regime,” said 38-year-old Ardol.


“I felt certain I would return home very soon.”


So when Bashir was forced out, Ardol returned from Kampala as quickly as he could.


“I came back immediately,” he said. “I was the head of the first armed group which arrived in Khartoum on May 10, 2019.”


He was appointed by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok -- a fellow returnee, who has made striking peace with the rebels who fought Bashir a priority.


Ardol aims to boost the revenues of SMRC, the African country’s top moneymaker.


“We far exceeded our targets,” he said. — AFP


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