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Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to you live from London. I'm Leila Nathu.

For exactly three years, Sudan has been in the grip of a brutal civil war. Today, as the country

marks this grim milestone, the power struggle between the army and paramilitary fighters, the rapid

support forces, is no closer to a resolution. Meanwhile, Sudan has been devastated. It has in

effect been partitioned, the country divided into territory controlled

by the two sides, and it is now the scene of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The fall of the western city of El Fasher in October last year was one of the most brutal

chapters of the conflict. Journalist Mohamed Soleimann was there, and for almost all of the

period since the war

began, he was caught in a communications blackout that cut off his connection to the world. He has

now made it to safety. His account, though, is a story about the worst of the war and the resilience

of Sudan's people, as our Africa correspondent Barbara P Plett Usher, now reports.

This sound is so familiar and so crucial to how we live our lives. But when Mohamed Suleiman entered the telecom's office in Port Sudan in January, he hadn't heard a phone

ring for a very long time.

He'd been isolated by conflict and unable to convey fully the horrors he was witnessing.

I was flustered because people were talking on their phones inside the office.

Throughout the past three years, my phone has mostly been on silent.

After I incited the SIM card, my tears flowed.

When his phone sprang to life, it was pinging with three years of messages,

news of colleagues who died, friends asking whether Muhammad was alive.

...