The mayor of Suakin dreams of a rebirth for his town, an ancient Red Sea port spared by the wars that have marked Sudan’s history but reduced to ruins by the ravages of time.”It was called the ‘White City’,” for its unique buildings made of coral stone taken from the seabed, said mayor Abu Mohamed El-Amin Artega, who is also the leader of the Artega tribe, part of eastern Sudan’s Beja ethnic group.Now the once-booming port and tourist draw languishes on the water, effectively forgotten for years as Sudan remains mired in a devastating war between the army and paramilitary forces.But inside the ruins of a mosque, a restoration crew is hard at work rebuilding this piece of Suakin, over a century after the city was abandoned.”Before the war, a lot of people came, a lot of tourists,” said Ahmed Bushra, an engineer with the association Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heritage from Conflict and Climate Change (SSLH).”We hope in the future, when peace comes to Sudan, they will come and enjoy our beautiful historic buildings here,” he told AFP.Architecture student Doha Abdelaziz Mohamed is part of the crew bringing the mosque back to life with funding from the British Council and support from UNESCO.”When I came here, I was stunned by the architecture,” the 23-year-old said. The builders “used techniques that are no longer employed today”, she told AFP. “We are here to keep our people’s heritage.”- Abandoned -The ancient port — set on an oval island nestled within a lagoon — served for centuries as a transit point for merchant caravans, Muslim and Christian pilgrims travelling to Mecca and Jerusalem, and the regional slave trade, according to the Rome-based heritage institute ICCROM.It became a vibrant crossroads under the Ottoman Empire, said Artega, 55, and its population grew to around 25,000 as a construction boom took off.”The streets were so crowded that, as our forefathers said, you could hardly move.”Everything changed in 1905, when the British built a deeper commercial port 60 kilometres (37 miles) north, to accommodate increased maritime traffic with the opening of the Suez Canal.”Merchants and residents moved to Port Sudan,” the mayor said, lamenting the decline of what he calls “Sudan’s great treasure”.But his Artega tribe, which has administered the city since the sixth century with powers “passed from father to son”, refused to leave. His ancestor, he said, scolded the British: “You found a port as prosperous as a fine hen — you took its eggs, plucked its feathers and now you spit its bones back at us.”As proof of the Artega’s influence, he keeps at home what he says are swords and uniforms gifted to his ancestors by Queen Victoria during the British colonial period.The rise of Port Sudan spelled disaster for Suakin, whose grand public buildings and elegant coral townhouses were left to decay, slowly eaten away by the humid winds and summer heat.But the 1990s brought new hope, with the opening of a new passenger port linking Suakin to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.Today, the Sudanese transport company Tarco operates daily crossings, carrying around 200 passengers per trip from the modern port of Suakin, within sight of the ancient city and its impoverished environs.- Lease to Turkey -The city’s optimism grew in 2017 when then-president Omar al-Bashir granted the old port to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under a 99-year lease for touristic development.A Turkish company restored the old governor’s palace, customs house and two mosques, but the project stalled in 2019 after Bashir fell from power in the face of mass protests.Then, in April 2023, the cruise passengers and scuba divers who once stopped in Suakin completely vanished when fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).A rusting cargo ship now lies stranded on a sandbank in the blue lagoon, where only a handful of fishing boats float around.But Bushra, from SSLH, remains optimistic. He hopes to see the mosque, which houses the tomb of a Sufi sheikh, host a traditional music festival when the renovation is complete, “in five months”.”When we finish the restoration, the tourists can come here,” he said. 

Iran’s top security official said Saturday that progress had been made towards negotiations with the United States, even as the Islamic republic’s army chief warned Washington against launching military strikes.US President Donald Trump confirmed the two sides were talking, while keeping the threat of an attack in the foreground.Washington has deployed warships led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off Iran’s shores, after Trump threatened to intervene in the wake of Tehran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.”Contrary to the hype of the contrived media war, structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing,” said Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.He was speaking a day after the Kremlin said he held talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday a broader conflict would hurt both Iran and the United States.”The Islamic Republic of Iran has never sought, and in no way seeks, war and it is firmly convinced that a war would be in the interest of neither Iran, nor the United States, nor the region,” he said in a call with Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to the Iranian presidency.Later Saturday, Trump confirmed that there was a dialogue between Washington and Tehran.”(Iran is) talking to us, and we’ll see if we can do something, otherwise we’ll see what happens… we have a big fleet heading out there,” he told Fox News.”They are negotiating,” he added.Qatar’s foreign ministry said its premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as foreign minister, held talks in Tehran with Larijani on Saturday to try to “de-escalate tensions in the region”.- Fears of conflict -The arrival of the US flotilla has raised fears of a direct confrontation with Iran, which has warned it would respond with missile strikes on US bases, ships and allies — notably Israel — in the event of an attack.Trump has said he believes Iran will make a deal over its nuclear and missile programmes rather than face US military action.Tehran has said it is ready for nuclear talks if its missiles and defence capabilities are not on the agenda.Iranian army chief Amir Hatami has warned the United States and Israel against any attack, saying his forces were “at full defensive and military readiness”.”If the enemy makes a mistake, without a doubt it will endanger its own security, the security of the region, and the security of the Zionist regime,” Hatami said, official news agency IRNA reported.Iran’s nuclear technology and expertise “cannot be eliminated”, he added.With tensions heightened, Iranian authorities rushed to deny that several incidents on Saturday were linked to any attack or sabotage.They included an explosion in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas that local firefighters said was caused by a gas leak.- Naval exercise -On Friday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would conduct “a two-day live-fire naval exercise” in the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit hub for global energy supplies.CENTCOM warned the IRGC against “any unsafe and unprofessional behaviour near US forces”, drawing a sharp response from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.”The US military is now attempting to dictate how our Powerful Armed Forces should conduct target practice in their own turf,” he wrote on X.The United States designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation in 2019, a move the European Union followed on Thursday, prompting angry reactions from Tehran.The United States carried out strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites in June when it briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against its regional foe.Nationwide protests against the rising cost of living erupted on December 28, before turning into a broader anti-government movement that peaked on January 8 and 9 in what authorities called “riots” blamed on the United States and Israel.- ‘Serve the people’ -The official death toll from the authorities stands at 3,117. However, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has confirmed 6,713 deaths, including 137 children.On Saturday, Pezeshkian urged his government to heed public grievances and “serve the people”. Some Iranians at the Kapikoy border point separating Iran and Turkey, where a little over 100 people crossed on Saturday, said they wanted to be free of the clerical leaders in Tehran.”They were shooting us in the back. We were even targeted through our windows,” said Shabnan, using a pseudonym. “Everyone has lost loved ones, friends, neighbours, acquaintances.”burs-jj/acb/abs/mtp