Where Are You, Sukhoi?
By: Sabah Makki
As El-Fasher endures a treacherous assault by the militias, with hearts trembling and social media boiling over with rumors while TV channels echo with misleading reports, the voice of the state is conspicuously absent in one of the most crucial battles — the battle for awareness and information. The streets are speaking, yet the media is silent. The Ministry of Information has become a faint shadow at a time when the word is as vital as the weapon.
Where is “Sukhoi,” the commander of the Ministry of Information?
At a time when El-Fasher faces its 266th attack since the outbreak of war — as its people display extraordinary resilience — a painful truth unfolds before our eyes: a media failure so severe it exposes a national crisis on the state’s most vital front — the front of awareness.
The Ministry of Information is silent. The official news agency, SUNA, is absent.
The streets speak, but the media is mute — and that is the real tragedy.
Where is the ministry in the battle for El-Fasher? Where is the minister on the front of public awareness?
Where are the statements, the strategy, the response?
Where is the official voice that refutes militia lies, leads the international narrative, strengthens the home front, and sends messages of unity and resilience to the people — facing a flood of lies, toxic propaganda, and orchestrated disinformation campaigns funded by foreign agendas?
Where is the ministry when foreign media outlets broadcast militia propaganda from inside Khartoum, spreading their poison unchecked — while the propaganda machine of Abu Dhabi’s regime and its local proxies from the remnants of the “Qaht” coalition, “Sumoud,” and domestic collaborators flood the airwaves with deceit and noise?
It is shameful that today, the truth is told only through videos from the fighters on the frontlines and posts by patriotic journalists — while the very institutions entrusted with leading public awareness drown in a suspicious silence. Were it not for those honorable voices, the public would have been consumed by the lies and fabrications spewed by Abu Dhabi’s propaganda networks and their so-called “revolutionary” fronts.
Sukhoi — the nickname the people gave you when you spoke like a missile, fierce and fearless — where are you now?
You once vowed to be the shield of truth, yet now you have become a faded shadow in a sky clouded by lies.
We know you are not the official government spokesperson, but you head the Ministry of Information. It is your duty to organize the flow of information, coordinate institutions, and unify the message. Yet there is nothing on television, no statement from SUNA, no post from the ministry’s page. The country is drowning in disinformation, and official media watches in silence — as if the catastrophe were none of its concern.
The information space has become a battlefield where lies are launched via satellites, while the ministry remains sunk in apathy and detachment from the people’s pulse.
Citizens in areas deprived of internet access find nothing on state TV, while foreign channels bombard them with propaganda. Sudanese abroad hear the same distorted narrative from international outlets that polish lies with eloquence. Millions of dollars are being poured into the militias’ disinformation machine, while the legitimate state fights its battle in silence — as if awareness were a luxury, not a national necessity.
Thus, the silence at home amplifies the noise abroad, until lies begin to speak in the nation’s name.
Is it conceivable that patriotic citizens and youth on Facebook and social media are faster in delivering the truth than a whole ministry?
If you lack a media operations room, a crisis plan, or an emergency team — do you expect Facebook activists to run your ministry for you?
Look around you, Sukhoi: in times of national peril, countries unify their media — broadcasting live updates nonstop, suspending entertainment, and dedicating every frequency to the national cause.
That is how nations confront danger — by mobilizing their media just as they mobilize their armies.
But here, every outlet acts alone, while the very ministry meant to lead the information front merely watches from behind the glass, as if it were a guest, not the host.
Modern wars are not fought with bullets alone, but with words and narratives.
He who fails to grasp that media is the first front of victory has lost the battle before it begins.
Fighters battle with weapons, citizens with words — but the ministry fights with silence, as if absence were a strategy.
Today, it is the people who lead the battle for awareness — the fighter documenting from the heart of the fire, the patriotic journalist countering lies with truth, the young men and women who turned their phones into trenches of consciousness.
They are the real Sukhois.
The ministry, however, chose silence over struggle — and with its silence, the state’s voice and prestige have vanished from the media sky.
Mr. Minister, El-Fasher is bleeding. The nation is fighting.
The people are waiting not for your photo — but for your stance.
He who hides in wartime does not deserve the honor of office, and he who stays silent amid deception becomes complicit through his silence.
Media is not an accessory of the state; it is its first shield and final weapon.
El-Fasher endures.
The people expose.
And state media stutters.
Who, then, leads the consciousness? The people — not the ministry.
Who writes history? Reality — not the absent press releases.
And until you return, Sukhoi, as the force you once promised to be, the question will hang in the air like a sword:
Have your engines gone silent — or have you chosen to soar above the dust, in a sky without direction, to avoid facing the truth, leaving the battlefield to your foes?
