At dawn in Port Sudan, dockworkers gathered at the gates of the country’s main maritime lifeline and refused to move. Towering cranes stood unmanned and cargo ships waited offshore along the eastern red-rust coastline. For three days the country’s busiest port – which straddles the land and the coveted Red Sea – was brought to a standstill.
The strike, which took place in early 2019, was observed by 1,800 workers taking a stand against a 20-year concession to hand over control of the South Port Container Terminal to a foreign operator widely believed to be acting as a front for Emirati capital.1 The contract gave International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI), a Philippine port operator, the right to develop the port, effectively privatizing the country’s main maritime artery. ‘They wanted to fire 80 per cent of the workers,’ one union organizer recalled bitterly, ‘and replace them with foreigners at cheaper rates’. This would have spelled disaster not only for the dockworkers but for the whole city. ‘This is our lifeline,’ one worker said. ‘Every family in the city depends on it.’
