Residents sit in a pool of water due to the flooding of the Nile river in the Sudanese village of Wad Ramli north of Khartoum on October 1, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Khartoum: In the outskirts of Wad Ramli, north of Sudan's capital Khartoum, the familiar passageways have vanished. Surging Nile waters, having breached sections of earthen embankment, now invade homes, submerge courtyards, and turn dirt roads into turbulent muddy streams.
The dark brown water, heavy with silt from the Ethiopian Highlands, flows violently, carrying a silent threat. The air hangs thick with the smell of mud, while the river's roar echoes like a constant warning.
Residents awoke to the unfolding disaster three days ago. Farmland that stood green just weeks earlier is now submerged. Men cluster at the broken edges of the embankment, watching helplessly as the river pushes further inland.
Amid the chaos, families scramble to salvage belongings. Children cry, men call out warnings, and some point frantically at homes teetering on the brink of collapse.
Young men desperately haul sand and soil in a race to reinforce the failing barriers. Cries ring out "Move the livestock ... Take the furniture to higher ground!"
"The people of Wad Ramli have suffered greatly from recurring floods since 2019," Haitham Suleiman, a prominent figure in Wad Ramli, told Xinhua. "This year, the damage is extensive -- buildings, livestock, and crops have all been destroyed."
Mustafa Bushra, a local resident, told Xinhua that "the area is still full of families -- women, children, and the elderly. Crops have been destroyed and fields ruined."
Ali Mabrouk, another local resident, said, "This year's flood is enormous. The entire Wad Ramli area has been devastated. People have been displaced under extremely harsh and difficult conditions."
"What worries me most isn't the furniture or the food, but where we will find shelter with the children. We are now sleeping in the open on the edge of the village," he said.
Sudan remains engulfed in a civil conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which erupted in April 2023. The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and deepened one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises.
Flooding remains an annual threat in Sudan from June and October. In recent years, heavy rainfall has caused hundreds of deaths and widespread destruction of homes and farmland, a crisis exacerbated by infrastructure weakened or even damaged during the ongoing conflict.
According to Sudan's Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, floods have swept through homes, neighborhoods, and farmland across six Sudanese states this year, including Blue Nile, Sinnar, Gezira, Khartoum, White Nile, and Northern State.
The ministry recently cited multiple contributing factors, including water releases from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), climate change, and a delayed rainy season extending into October.
On Sept. 10, Ethiopia began releasing water from the GERD reservoir after it reached full capacity due to heavy rainfall during the rainy season. The release peaked at around 750 million cubic meters per day.
Ethiopia officially inaugurated the GERD on Sept. 9, despite objections from downstream Egypt and Sudan, who have been demanding a binding agreement to protect their water interests against the dam's impact. In December 2023, Egypt announced the failure of the latest round of GERD negotiations after 13 years of talks.
Ethiopia said on Monday that its dam helped reduce Sudan's floods, claiming that the magnitude could have been devastating if the GERD had not been there.
In the meantime, experts have attributed the Nile's alarming rise this year to heavy rainfall in the Ethiopian Highlands, weakened embankments, and the growing impact of climate change.
Environmental expert Abdul Azim Haraka linked Sudan's worsening flood patterns to intensified rainfall and the growing impact of climate change in recent years.
"Urgent plans are needed to rebuild embankments with modern engineering and early warning systems," water resources expert Sami Abdel Rahim told Xinhua, warning that low-lying areas like Wad Ramli, historically flood pathways for the Nile, will remain vulnerable without permanent barriers.
