This email series highlights voices of peace from around the world, to help you find yours.
This month’s Voice of Peace is Nagat Suliman Ahmed, Search’s Grants and Reporting Officer for Central and East Africa.
Gunfire rang out as I gave birth to my son in a makeshift delivery ward. Becoming a mother can be a challenging experience no matter where you’re from. I became a mom in the middle of a war zone.
Like most mothers, I made countless preparations before my son was born. I had detailed plans for how I wanted things to go, expectations of what it would be like. But when war erupted in my home country of Sudan in April of 2023—just one month before I was due—there was no plan for what my family faced. Hospitals went out of service because of the violence and my doctor had to flee the country. Soon we too were forced to leave our home and seek safety wherever we could. We were grateful to find an open though barely functioning health center where I could deliver our son, but devastated that my mother could not find a safe road to travel in order to be with me. In our culture, a new mother’s family surrounds her with support and care. The war robbed me of this.
In my work with Search, I’ve listened to countless refugees and internally displaced persons tell me their stories. I thought I understood them when they shared what it was like to leave home, to have their world changed by war. But it wasn’t until I was the one displaced by violence—holding my brand new baby and wondering how long I’d even have the chance to be his mother—that I truly understood the weight of being responsible for your family’s stability and security when you have neither.
As I reflect back on the day my son made his way into the world and into a war, I keep coming back to a simple observation: Bringing life into the world is a natural thing. Nurturing life, sustaining it, helping someone live more fully—these are good and natural acts. Taking and destroying life is unnatural. It’s not what we’re meant to do or who we’re meant to be. The sound of shooting was loud outside the door of my labor and delivery room, but the sounds of babies just born were even louder. Life triumphs over death.
If you are a parent, whether you live in a war zone or not, your work is the same as mine: to raise children who build peace. Every peacebuilding concept begins in the home, every principle practiced there. The way we raise our children has the power to reduce violence in the world. Even Search’s global peacebuilding work begins on the inside. Our work helps people address how they see themselves and their neighbors, how they judge or interact or communicate with others. In Sudan and elsewhere, grievances between people drive violent conflict. Policy changes can be helpful and even necessary, but ultimately, peacebuilding has to happen on the inside. As parents, we initiate that process.
My son has no documentation. He has no passport. His vaccination record was hastily scratched on the back of a biscuit wrapper as we fled Sudan. But he has a name: Amru. “The one who lived longer.” When he was born, I did not know whether he’d live for even a month. I remain committed to peacebuilding work as a mother and as a member of the Search for Common Ground team because I want his name to be true—for him, and for my people.
