[Montréal, Québec, Canada 17°C] Southern Sudan was a place I had not heard much about before my seven-week visit to the East African region of the continent’s largest country. It is a part of Sudan where over eight million people are now recovering from a 21-year civil war that ended six years ago after [...]
Posts under ‘Montréal’
Sudanese-Canadian, Abousfian Abdelrazik’s Story Reads Like Spy Novel
[Montréal, Québec, Canada 13°C] Everyone has an intriguing life story to tell. We have all experienced significant moments that alter the course of our lives. For the better or the worse. But some stories are more compelling than others by the sheer intensity of the intrigue. Every so often, I come across an individual [...]
Seven-Weeks in Southern Sudan Beckons a Return Visit
[Montréal, Québec, Canada 13°C] It has been just over three weeks since I returned to Montréal from ten weeks in East Africa, most of which were spent in Southern Sudan. I’ve been back long enough to discard the lag that fogs the spirit after flying between continents. Sufficient time has passed to deplete the [...]
Sudanese-born Canadian May Fly Home on Friday (updated)
[Abyei Town, Abyei Transitional Area, Sudan 40°C] Abousfian Abdelrazik is a man from Montréal whose been living in ‘temporary safe haven’ in the Canadian Embassy in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, since late April 2008. He has been in Sudan since March 2003, when he went to visit his mother. According to a timeline of his [...]
Recovery in a post-conflict South Sudan
[MONTRÉAL] Yesterday, I submitted an elaborate funding proposal to help finance a trip to South Sudan. The entire document fills 34 pages with: the themes I want to investigate, the contacts already established in Canada and South Sudan (and their letters of intent to collaborate), the objectives and expected results, the distribution strategies for the [...]
Montréal fireworks are not always a pleasure of mine
[MONTRÉAL] I sit in my living room reading David Eggers’ What is the What, a fictionalized biography about Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys from Sudan’s 21-year civil war. The war ended tenuously in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Sudanese army in the north and the [...]
