Mohammed Mustafa, who fled the war in his native Sudan, cannot imagine returning, preferring to endure the trials of exile rather than a life of uncertainty at home.
"I can deal with anything while living in exile because I cannot and will not ever go back to Sudan,” said the 42-year-old bank accountant, who comes from Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman.
"I cannot place my trust again in a country where war can just erupt at any time. Believers don't get bitten twice by a snake that comes from the same hole.”
Mr Mustafa has lived in Saudi Arabia since he left Omdurman in the early days of the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which reached its third anniversary this week.
The latest in a series of civil wars that have bedevilled Sudan since independence in 1956, the current conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced at least 13 million. A25 million, or half the population, face hunger as a result of the war.
The war is widely viewed as a struggle for domination of the impoverished though resource-rich nation between army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo, although the pair tirelessly claim to be fighting to bring peace, unity and democracy to Sudan.
Repeated bids by regional and international powers to end the conflict have failed, with Gen Al Burhan adamant he will fight on until the RSF is vanquished or surrenders. Gen Dagalo, on the other hand, has shown willingness to negotiate, although his motive is widely suspected to be a desire to see his paramilitary force accorded international legitimacy.
"Those people see every destruction they inflict on Sudan as a divine victory or a heroic act of steadfastness,” said Mr Mustafa.
"To my mind, the real victory is when every Sudanese lives in security and prosperity. Instead, they see their future hinged on the defeat of the other, not the day when they bring a renaissance to the country.”
Mr Mustafa's sentiments, while reflecting the despair and anxiety of someone forced to live as a refugee, also speak of a Sudan pushed by a conflict to a crossroads at which it must decide whether the time has come for a new societal contract that binds to nationhood all of its many political, ethnic and religious groups or continue to fight itself into oblivion.
It is a challenge whose existence today belies the 70 years since Sudan gained independence, which, in many other countries, is the milestone that ushers in the birth of a nation accepted by all or most of its citizens.
"Even if Sudan eventually breaks up into ministates, the diversity in each one will continue to require smart handling,” said Sami Saeed, a US-based expert on Sudan. "For Sudan to remain united as a nation it needs political and constitutional creativity that draws on the country's own experiences.”
Sudan's addiction to turmoil is not the result of its ethnic and religious diversity alone. The army's traditional place as the nation's most powerful and perhaps best-functioning state institution has ironically been a source of instability and strife.
Created in 1925 during British rule, the army has never been short of generals hungry for political power. That in turn meant the military has consistently toppled freely elected civilian governments that had never delivered on the chronically ill economy or ended armed conflicts.
The military had not fared much better when its own men were at the helm, but it had a better survival record than civilian politicians.
"With state institutions weak and the poor state of managing diversity and modern governance, the army found itself to be much stronger than political parties and civilian institutions and subsequently became convinced it's more eligible to rule than anyone else,” said Mr Saeed.
"Sudan, moreover, has had no comprehensive national dialogue that produced a nation-building strategy or a social contract accepted by everyone.”
But that perception of strength is widely seen as the chief catalyst for the outbreak of the current civil war on April 15, 2023.
In October 2021, Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo, then uneasy allies, staged a coup that toppled a civilian-led, transitional government led by Abdalla Hamdok. The Hamdok government had taken office after long-serving dictator Omar Al Bashir was removed from power.
The 2021 coup led to political and security vacuums, creating conditions conducive to the outbreak of civil war less than two years later.
The two generals had fallen out over their place in a democratic Sudan. Although united in resentment of pro-democracy politicians, they were at odds over their rival bids to dominate.
"That coup deepened divisions among the people and took the country back years,” said Faisal Mohammed Saleh, information minister in the government toppled in 2021. "It was a twin-headed coup, and it's common knowledge that when this happens, the two fight it out at the expense of the people, and that's how the war began.
"The war has worsened the ethnic, geographical and religious fault lines to such a degree that its social and human cost will be with us for many years to come,” he said.
That potentially enduring and damaging fallout from the war, according to political activist and author Azzam Abdullah, can also be attributed to the wholesale displacement of the Sudanese.
"People started to redefine others and employ hate speech against each other,” he said. "Displacement and evictions have created a situation that has harmed the country's social fabric. Sudanese who live under RSF rule slowly develop a resentment towards the army and vice versa.”
Further straining the social fabric, both sides of the war stand accused of war crimes, with the RSF charged with ethnically-motivated killings and sexual assaults and the army accused of indiscriminate shelling and using chemical weapons.
So, where is Sudan going now that the war is on the cusp of its fourth year?
Already, the military and the RSF have rival administrations. Enshrining the de facto partition of the country, the front lines after three years of fighting leave the RSF in control of the entire western Darfur region and parts of neighbouring Kordofan as well as Blue Nile state in the south of the country. The army controls the capital as well as the eastern, northern and central regions of the country.
"We could be looking at the possible enshrinement in Sudan of the Libyan scenario whereby we have two separate states in one country,” said Mr Saleh.
"But I think the coming year may be the war's final year. Both parties have exhausted the scenario of continuing the war because the country and its people are no longer able to sustain the war.
"But there may be hope for a political settlement of some sort under international pressure that could in turn open the door for civilian forces to negotiate a new societal contract that makes everyone happy.”
But Mr Abdullah, the activist and political author, has placed his bet on a different scenario.
"I don't see a political settlement while the Islamist elite left over from the Al Bashir era is still around. It does not want to relinquish its dream of regaining power,” he said, alluding to the informal alliance between Gen Al Burhan and Islamist militias in the fight against the RSF.
"At the end, there may just be a fragile ceasefire that will be followed by the resumption of hostilities.”
Al Shafie Ahmed contributed to this report from Kampala, Uganda.
