The War Killed Her Dreams. To Survive, She Treated Its Fighters.

At a makeshift clinic in Sudan’s battle-torn capital, a determined young woman rushed to save fighters and civilians alike.She had no formal medical training.But as beat-up cars skidded to a halt outside the clinic's door, disgorging the wounded, she did her best to treat them — stanching gunshot wounds, changing dressings, improvising blood tests with her cellphone.Drones buzzed overhead.

Snipers perched on rooftops.Explosives struck the clinic, and more than once, the woman, Amal Abdelazeem, thought she was going to die.The war has remade her.

“I’m a different person now,” she said, days after escaping the city.Hers was the generation that was supposed to save Sudan.They thronged the streets and toppled a dictator in 2019, in a moment of audacious hope that promised a sparkling future to wash away the decades of stale autocracy.

Ms.Abdelazeem, then in college, attended one protest.

“We needed a new Sudan,” she said.But the old Sudan returned quickly, and with a vengeance.The civil war that erupted last year between rival military factions not only split a giant African nation in two — it also derailed an entire generation, forcing young Sudanese to make painful choices as they navigated a war that few wanted.Democracy activists picked up guns to fight alongside the soldiers they once despised.

Artists set up food kitchens.Lawyers collected rape testimony.

Millions fled Sudan....