All that I did over 40 years has turned to ashes before my eyes, says Prof Ahmed Fahal, of the destruction of his research centre in Sudan's capital, Khartoum. His once-gleaming laboratory, where a team of white-coated expert clinicians once busied over their work, is now little more than rubble. I built everything from scratch. I knew every corner, every brick of the building. I can't describe the pain, he says.