Hashtags, online messages, Whatsapp groups, instructional videos: in Khartoum Sudan Under the bombs and the crossfire of the two opposing sides, solidarity is organized on social media.

“Send calls for help, requests for help and try to reach out” to those who need it, Muztaba Musa tweets to his more than 200,000 followers.

Like many other Sudanese who are locked in their homes, where the Internet is the only window to the world, he is trying to help. Since Saturday, Khartoum has been lacking everything: running water, electricity, food, medicine.

Solidarity is organized with the hashtags #Needs_Khartoum or #Needs_Omdurman, and around 20,000 related posts were shared yesterday Wednesday alone.

On WhatsApp, several hundred members of the Khartoum Common Needs group report shortages: Hulud needs baby milk, Hillam needs a car, another user, anonymous, a charger to contact relatives.

Others offer advice: what to put in your escape bag, which doctor to see, how to deal with a panic attack?

Gunshot wound care guide

The doctors’ union has posted videos on Facebook about giving first aid to victims of firearms. This was filmed in 2019, during the “revolution” that brought down dictator Omar al-Bashir after three decades in power.

Then the authorities, who brutally suppressed the democratic demonstrations, cut off the Internet and telecommunications to prevent the international community from seeing the scene of the massacre.

Now, however, the two opposing generals are choosing to flood social media with their propaganda.

“Control the situation in your area and describe it so as not to spread rumors,” emphasize the resistance committees, small nuclei of residents created in each area during the 2019 uprising.

In a city of 5 million, where there is confusion and shortages, these committees are calling on citizens to set up “makeshift pharmacies for the wounded.”

Due to the fighting, nine hospitals in Khartoum have already suspended their work out of 39 hospitals across the country, and those that remain open are experiencing a shortage of medical equipment and medical workers.

“Find a pharmacist and create a whatsapp group”

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

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

Khalid Saad invites his approximately 80,000 followers to organize in a wider climate.

“Find a pharmacist, create a Whatsapp group and send them your prescriptions,” he suggests on Twitter. The volunteer can then deliver the medicines to the patients on their motorbike and everyone shares the cost of the gas.

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

Under the scorching sun of Khartoum, one of the world’s hottest cities, a rotting corpse and the bacteria it can carry terrorize residents.

“Those who want to leave the Khartoum-2 area, leave immediately, go through the press street, it is open,” the Twitter message said. But in Khartoum, everything can change in an instant, and this information is “valid at 12:43,” he emphasizes.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP.}