Ground Zero of Sudan’s Camel Trade
Photographer Matt Reichel documents Khartoum’s Omdurman Camel Market, where hundreds of thousands of animals are moved each year across desert routes to Egypt and the Gulf, underpinning Sudan’s pastoral economy despite conflict and drought.
A recently sold camel has just been strapped into a harness connected to a forklift by the man in the foreground. The camel will be loaded into a truck and shipped across the Sahara to Cairo. The camels react strongly to being tied up and lifted, as if they know somehow that this is the beginning of the end for them.
A cargo truck loaded with sacks of food, fuel drums, and household goods pulls away from the Omdurman camel market, heading west toward Darfur. Many traders and herders return on the same vehicles they arrived on, carrying supplies purchased with proceeds from camel sales. For weeks or months at a time, this market functions as a vital exchange point: camels move east toward urban and export buyers, while manufactured goods, staples, and cash flow back into pastoral regions that remain largely roadless and underserved.
