A People Neglected - Again | Pulitzer Center

September 12, 2009 | Pulitzer Center

Heba Aly

A typical mud home in Al-Taitti village, northern Sudan – but for a few beds and cooking supplies, it is empty, even of its people, many of whom have gone abroad in search of a better life. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

A People Neglected - Again. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

This villager makes a living collecting brown, muddy Nile River water and delivering it to people's homes on his donkey. This is the only drinking water many villagers have access to in northern Sudan. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

The only elementary school in Al-Taitti was built with the villagers' own money. The walls are crumbling, there are no lights and most of the teachers are untrained. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

Villagers in northern Sudan complain the government has not served them at all. Any services they have they built themselves. Yet they still pay small, but annual taxes on each and every palm tree. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

Many children in Al-Taitti village in northern Sudan grow up without their fathers, who emigrate soon after marriage in order to make money abroad with which to support their families. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

The ancient Nubian city of Kerma, preserved from 1450 B.C. when it was last inhabited by royalty and elites. Many northern Sudanese are disgruntled with the government because they fear the construction of new dams in their areas will flood their ancestral homelands, wiping out entire villages and historical archeological sites. One group, the Kush Liberation Movement, has threatened armed action. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

Northern Sudanese in Al-Sertode village stand before a dead body in prayer before burial. One hospital serves the entire Northern State, with a population of more than a million people in one of Sudan's vastest states. But the quality of the hospital is such that many villagers have to make the six-hour trip to the capital to get proper treatment, according to one northerner. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

While villagers struggle in daily life, government officials – even at the state level – drive Land Cruisers and work in big, fancy offices. This is the boardroom of the governor of Northern State. The national government makes billions of dollars in oil revenue. It says it now transfers half of that money to the semi-autonomous southern government and individual states, including Northern State. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

Zainab Abubakr is a widow who works in the fields, carries food for her animals on her head, pulls water by hand from a well and prepares her dinner under moonlight as she has no electricity. She guesses she is about 40 years old. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

An electricity pole erected in Al-Sahaba village remains without wires to carry electricity to people's homes. The government says it never used to have the resources to invest in development – something it blames on war and Western sanctions. But with oil money beginning to flow significantly since 2003, it says this has begun to change. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

But northern Sudanese wonder how long it will be before they see the social and economic development they have been waiting for. Image by Heba Aly. Sudan, 2009.

In Sudan, we've heard this story before. Marginalization of the country's peripheries has led to armed rebellions in the south, the west (Darfur), and the east of the country. Many believe the north could be next.

Northern Sudan – while mostly Arab, like the government – has gained little from Khartoum. The government now makes billions of dollars in oil revenue annually, but many northerners still live without clean drinking water, electricity, proper education or health care.

This is a look at the lives of ordinary villagers in northern Sudan – a region that has received dangerously little attention.

"It's like when you try to stop a bush fire," says one United Nations risk management official. "You think you've stopped it and then it pops up in another area. There aren't many other areas it can pop up in Sudan, except Northern State."

Photographs by Heba Aly