One stiflingly hot spring day, a 23-year-old Sudanese refugee, Esmail, sits down to tell me about his life in Doro camp, South Sudan. He's a big name in Doro: Esmail is one of the founders of the martial arts programme, which is the bedrock of activities for more than 250 young residents of the camp. “I began the programme back home; a schoolmate and I wanted to learn how to defend ourselves when the fighting broke out,” he explains.
The call to self-defence is not hypothetical. Since April 15, 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, Sudan has become engulfed in what could be described as ‘total war’, conducted with no regard to civilian welfare. Fighting has displaced 8.6 million people from their
