Sara Wani researches migration and refugee movements

The year 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the secession and independence of South Sudan from Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of people had to move to the new country, mostly for political and ethnic reasons and with this, a huge humanitarian and identity crisis was unleashed in this region. In addition to this, in April 2023, a new conflict broke out in Sudan that displaced a large number of people both to the south and to other neighboring countries. The latest figures speak of 3.1 million people who have left Sudan due to the war. Many South Sudanese, who have found refuge in Khartoum or have lived there all their lives, had to leave the country. While some moved to South Sudan, others went to Egypt or other neighbouring countries.
Sara Wani born in Khartoum (Sudan), holding a South Sudanese citizenship, has experienced these problems first hand. After the outbreak of the war in Khartoum, she had to leave her home in Khartoum and fled to Egypt. In previous researches, she had investigated the relationship between gender and identity issues, and migration of displaced women who had to move to South Sudan and those who had remained in Sudan and became foreigners in their own country after the secession of South Sudan. The subject of Sara Wani's research at Friedensau University, which she conducts in cooperation with Professor Dr Ulrike Schultz from the School of Social Science, are the recent movements and displacements happening in Sudan after the outbreak of the war. She scrutinizes the experiences of South Sudanese who had lived in Khartoum up to April this year. Sara Wani conducts online interviews with people in the conflict zones, in exile or on the move, looks at archives and data of international organizations and reflects on relevant studies that researched on similar movements in the past.
During the three months that Wani will be in Friedensau, she hopes to make as much progress as possible in the research despite the great uncertainty that the future holds for that region of the world and for her work as a researcher and as an assistant professor at Ahfad University for Women in Omdurman (Sudan).