The office building doing what the UN hasn’t: Bringing harmony to factions of a civil war

Tens of thousands of people on both sides of Sudan’s brutal two-year civil war have sought safety in Uganda, and hundreds of those refugees have set up small businesses in a five-story commercial building in downtown Kampala run by Nasr Al Din Sandel.

Sudanese refugees, divided along ethnic lines, sometimes come to blows in the city’s streets. But inside the crowded Nyumba Kubwa—Swahili for Big House—Sandel ensures his tenants check their civil war at the door.

He breaks up brawls between Arab Sudanese and their Black rivals, and rescues refugees from both sides when they run into trouble with Ugandan authorities.

A Black Sudanese himself, Sandel says he never holds it against the Arabs that they’ve been accused of attempting to wipe out his people. 

“I have never discriminated against anyone based on their tribal affiliations," the 45-year-old said in his cramped office, where he also runs a travel agency. “We only deal with each other as Sudanese."

Sudan erupted in violence in 2023 when the awkward partnership broke down between the country’s de facto president, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who had seized power in a coup, and his No. 2, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a one-time camel herder turned warlord. The fighting that followed between al-Burhan’s Sudanese army and Dagalo’s mostly Arab paramilitary, the Rapid Support Forces, has left the country’s capital in ruins, tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands facing starvation.

The U.S. earlier this year accused Dagalo’s men of attempted genocide for massacring Black Sudanese in the Darfur region and accused al-Burhan of war crimes for ordering airstrikes on civilians.

Some 64,000 Sudanese have taken advantage of Uganda’s friendly refugee policies, which guarantee newcomers freedom to live and work anywhere in the country.

The war has engendered bitter feelings. Sandel, who set down roots in Uganda after fleeing an earlier Sudanese conflict, sees his job as making sure they don’t seep into his building, or his orbit.

In one incident in 2023, Sandel rushed to Entebbe International Airport outside of Kampala when he learned a group of Sudanese had been stranded for hours because their English wasn’t proficient enough to communicate with airport staff. On the ride back to the city, an argument among the refugees descended into a fistfight inside the van, and Sandel had to pull over to put a stop to it.

Both Arab and Black business people have set up shop in Sandel’s building, which is vaguely triangular and overlooks a busy downtown intersection.

There are leather-goods stores and dealers in brightly colored robes, a finance firm that makes microloans and a company called Majestic Interiors that sells mosquito nets and curtain rods. Some shops open onto the sidewalk. Others sit on cramped interior hallways, protected by metal security shutters. Some rooms are occupied by multiple businesses.

Sandel formed a WhatsApp group to keep the tenants—almost exclusively Sudanese—in touch. He banned them from infecting chats with talk of politics or ethnicity. The price of defying him is removal from the group chat and, ultimately, the building.

“He makes sure everyone is living in harmony," said Mo Suliman, who owns Nyala Café, a Sudanese-style coffee house where refugees sip cappuccinos and swap gossip about what’s going on back home.

Suliman, 35, fought in the Rapid Support Forces and says he fled after he was separated from his unit during an airstrike. He named his coffee shop after the hometown of Dagalo, his former commander.

Next door, 64-year-old Mohamed Bashir sells leather bags he embosses with elephants and maps of Africa. Bashir fled Sudan after Dagalo’s rebel fighters destroyed his house in an artillery barrage. Bashir, who belongs to the Masalit, a Black community in Darfur, sees Sudan’s military as his people’s most likely saviors.

In the Big House, where Sudanese flags and posters of Sudanese dishes favored by both sides decorate the hallways, Suliman and Bashir chat amiably and walk to the mosque together for Friday prayers.

Sudanese merchants also come together to brainstorm logistics. They discuss how to replenish stocks of hometown products to satisfy a customer base that swells with every new battle and every new wave of refugees. They talk about how to deal with officials and how to get goods back home. They even negotiate fees with the enemy next door to ensure safe passage out of Sudan for supply convoys and family members.

Abass Suliman Mohamed used to edit a pro-rebel newspaper in Sudan, drawing the ire of government forces, which accused him of biased reporting. After several arrests, he left the country in 2023, taking a 20-hour bus trip from the capital, Khartoum, to Port Sudan, then flying to Uganda via Ethiopia.

From his office on the third floor, Mohamed arranges weekly shipments of Chinese clothing from Uganda to Sudan. Each time he sends a consignment, he says he drops off $100 at another office one floor up, this one affiliated with the Sudanese government’s intelligence service. The payment, he says, buys the safety of his business associates in Khartoum.

“There is a lot of business taking place between Uganda and Sudan," he said. “But you have to pay both sides to stay in business."

The concentration of refugee businesses in one building has proven a tempting target for Ugandan officials seeking a payout, according to Sudanese business owners.

“Some soldiers sometimes show up here and ask for identification cards," said Al Amin Ahmed Mohammed, a smartphone dealer. “They force some refugees to pay them money."

A government spokesman said authorities are investigating extortion allegations.

Elsewhere in Kampala, Black and Arab Sudanese sometimes come to blows. In one incident last year, an argument over the war triggered a melee outside of a refugee-registration office in Kampala, prompting authorities to suspend work for several days.

Sandel won’t put up with any such nonsense. To do otherwise would risk kneecapping his own business career, since he collects 10% of the building rent for managing the property.

He intervenes with Ugandan authorities to help countrymen who get arrested for missing paperwork or for engaging in street brawls with other Sudanese refugees. He mediates business disputes, including arguments over rent between tenants sharing the same space.

For now, it has created a rare safe haven for the refugees.

“Of course the war has affected all of us," Bashir, the leather-goods seller, said as he paced the hallway outside his shop. “But Sudanese people in this building remain united and peaceful."

Write to Nicholas Bariyo at nicholas.bariyo@wsj.com