Just some months ago, thousands of young people in Sudan started to march against Al Bashir, their cruel dictator who had been ruling in the country for 20 years, with genocides and violence.
We all remember Darfur, with all its people killed by the government, and people and associations calling to stop the genocide, from UN to George Clooney, to hundreds of celebrities blaming this violence.
We all rember it. We all remember the mourning for those harmless people, who were raped, beaten and killed. Women, men, children, young and old people. Nobody understood nor yet understands the need for that violence. Anyway, the civil world rose up and asked for justice.
After a lot of time, the violent rush faded away and Al Bashir gave up on South Sudan and was convicted of genocide. Anyway, he kept on governing, protected by China.
Some months ago, people in Khartoum said “Enough!”, marched peacefully for days and organized meeting. With the help of soldiers – who are always the actual leaders of the game in Africa – they managed to defeat Al Bashir.
There is a famous picture – which we are using as a cover for this article – of a girl, dressed in white, while talking to a crowd of people, standing on a car’s roof. A young woman talking during a meeting against the government meant the beginning of a new spring.
After some promises about free elections and after a couple of months of negotiations between TMC, Transitional Military Council, and community committees, a man callled Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo and known as Hemeti, declared that he had run out of patience: at he beginning of June, he sent to Khartoum his Rapid Support Force (RSF) – made of about 9,000 killers – to cut the first spring corn ears of the Sudanese youth. Hundreds of people has died, every city has imposed the curfew, soldiers go around, killing people who dare to protest.
For Hemeti this is not the first time: he is known also as “the butcher”, he joined in Darfur’s violence as a protagonist, with his troops called “Men with no mercy”, he stopped migrants because of the deals with EU – we must remember it – and he has always been the cruel man of the cruel government.
The conclusion is bitter: springs in Africa are getting shorter. We must thank and remember all democracy’s young heroes who has died for this hope, but we must also despise people killing these springs or those forgetting or ignoring them. Because all of us should remember and support them.
