AHMED KHIRELSID
OUT OF CONTROL
On the morning of Saturday, April 15, I woke up to the noise of my family in distress and many missed calls on my phone. War had broken out in Khartoum, Sudan between the army and the RSF militia. Within hours we were hearing the sounds of artillery around us, we knew that we were stuck in the middle of a battlefield. We had to leave the city.
Death, violence, political and economic instability, upheaval and doubt have become inherent to the Sudanese people in the last 5 years; from the revolution, to the pandemic, to the military coup in 2021, and now a war that has exploded at a time when we were trying to rise and recover from a country in chaos.
“Under Control” is a personal project that documents my experience of being forced to leave my family home, and my attempts to adapt to this new situation. Through this work I try to explore and understand the psychological and emotional trauma I received as a result of this war, as well as those around me.
We fled to a village called Al-Hasaya, where my uncle offered us an abandoned house, no one has lived in it for years. None of my family know what the next step is. It is a time of waiting and uncertainty. "Under Control " is both a commentary on the mental state I'm going through during this challenging time, and also indirectly as a political commentary on the news and propaganda coming to us from the two clashing sides of the war.
