#BLUEFORSUDAN

-By Aisha Sambo

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Have you noticed so many people turning their profile picture on Instagram blue? but what is happening and what is the significance of blue?

Well, Blue profile pictures first started appearing after the death of Mohamed Hashim Mattar, a 26-year-old engineer and graduate of London’s Brunel University, who was killed in the crackdown on a pro-democracy protest camp in a square in front of the military headquarters in Sudan on the 3rd of June 2019.

Sudan is currently in the midst of a political and humanitarian crisis. The country has been plagued by widespread violence since the ousting of longtime dictator President Omar Al-Bashir in April. After security forces opened fire on pro-democracy protestors in the capital Khartoum. The death toll reports vary, but reports of sexual violence and bodies being tossed in the River Nile are largely thought to be reliable. The hashtag #BlueforSudan is trending across social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, users are posting solid blue pictures and changing their profile pictures to blue in solidarity with Sudan. The colour represents the crisis after the death of activist Mohamed Mattar, whose favourite colour was blue.

Now, social media users are turning their accounts blue in solidarity with Sudan. Celebrities including Rihanna put up the colour on their profiles, along with hashtags like #BlueForSudan, others with ulterior motives have decided to set up bogus Instagram accounts to exploit the campaign to get more followers. A number of instagram accounts have been accessed of using social media campaigns to gain more followers on the platform.

One account @SudanMealProject, gathered nearly 400,000 followers in less than a week before Instagram removed it for violating policies. The account posted a blue photo in reference to #BlueForSudan along with an appeal to follow and share the post.

“For every person who follows and shares this on their story we will provide one meal to starving Sudanese children,” it reads.

All I’m saying is that we must be careful about the reason why we…”jump on the bandwagon!”