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 Fasha in October last year was one of the most brutal chapters of the conflict.
Journalist Mohamed Suleiman 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 Pletasha 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 had n'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.