AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The Acropole Hotel stood as a landmark in central Khartoum for 70 years - a gathering place for journalists, diplomats and travelers. It survived coups, revolutions and unrest but not Sudan's latest war. Looted and abandoned, the hotel now stands as a symbol of what's been lost. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu stayed at the Acropole before the war and returned last month.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: The Acropole Hotel is hard to miss. It's a grand, three-story clay-colored building, just a short walk away from the presidential palace. Blue wooden shutters cover the windows, and patios overlook a street in central Khartoum. For decades, this was a popular landing spot for aid workers, archaeologists and journalists visiting Sudan, like it was for me five years ago when I stayed here. But like so much in this city, it's been wrecked by the war. The shutters and windows are broken, and parts of the walls peppered by gunfire.
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AKINWOTU: The hotel was founded in 1952, a few years before the 1956 celebrations marking independence from British and Egyptian rule.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: And after the optimism at independence came decades of civil wars, famines, military coups and repression. The Acropole faced turbulence and was even bombed, but it stood through it all until now. It was founded by a Greek family, the Pagoulatos.
ELEANORA PAGOULATOS: Hi there.
AKINWOTU: Hi. How are you?
PAGOULATOS: How are you?
AKINWOTU: It's nice to meet you.
PAGOULATOS: OK.
AKINWOTU: It's lovely to meet you.
PAGOULATOS: It's nice to see you.
AKINWOTU: Seventy-five-year-old Eleanora (ph) Pagoulatos spoke to me on a FaceTime call from Athens.
PAGOULATOS: We did very well with all the NGOs. They all stayed in the Acropole when Bob Geldof brought the Band-Aid. The only telex that was working was in the Acropole.
AKINWOTU: She lives in Greece now, but she was born and raised in Sudan.
PAGOULATOS: Do you remember George, my husband?
AKINWOTU: Yes, I do.
It's where she first met George Pagoulatos in 1968. His father founded the Acropole, and after he died, George and his brothers took over.
PAGOULATOS: He told me when he got married to me, he said, listen, my work is first. I love my work. I can't live without it. Second is my mother, and then come - and then you come. I said, fine, (laughter) no problem.
AKINWOTU: On the call, we shared pictures of the hotel. Large photographs of pyramids and landscapes in Sudan hung on the walls, some taken by archaeologists who stayed there. Bougainvillea and aloe vera lined the patios.
PAGOULATOS: I was looking after the plants. I love plants.
AKINWOTU: Yeah, yeah.
PAGOULATOS: So I was happy to receive those photos.
AKINWOTU: Yeah.
PAGOULATOS: Thank you.
AKINWOTU: Like all in Sudan, the family were no strangers to unrest. So when the fighting broke out on the streets of Khartoum in April 2023, they thought it would pass.
PAGOULATOS: We've been through so many coups. And we always, always after four, maybe seven, one week, then it came back to normal.
AKINWOTU: But this time, it was different. The Rapid Support Forces took over the city and stormed in.
PAGOULATOS: They just broke the door, and they came in with the machine guns and asking for money...
AKINWOTU: Wow.
PAGOULATOS: ...And gold and water and food.
AKINWOTU: And the family were forced to leave. In March, the Sudanese army recaptured Khartoum.
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AKINWOTU: And last month, I went back to the Acropole to see what happened to it.
Wow. So this was the main reception area. This was the front desk. You'd go to the front desk there, and this is where the family worked from. This was their office, and it's just been completely trashed. All their documents are on the ground. The chair's broken, the tables...
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AKINWOTU: We've just walked into the room I stayed in when I stayed here five years ago, and there's no bed. The telephone line is on the floor. There were pictures on the wall. None of them are there. Only one is there, and the glass is cracked. It's just completely trashed.
For 70 years, the Acropole was more than a business for the Pagoulatos.
PAGOULATOS: It was a house. It was a home because we had so many nice clients - journalists, which we hear the news from them.
AKINWOTU: And especially for her husband. He never saw what happened to the hotel. He passed away a few months before the war started.
PAGOULATOS: And I said, God, maybe you took him for this reason, so that he doesn't see all this, all this, you know, because his life was the Acropole.
AKINWOTU: During the initial months of the war, she still hoped to return, but the war has continued longer than she imagined.
PAGOULATOS: I loved my work. I love the people. I love my staff. All my life was there. All my life.
AKINWOTU: The Pagoulatos family planned for their children to take over, too, but not anymore.
PAGOULATOS: The future of the Acropole - there is no future. You know, no one of our children wants to go back. No one. No one.
AKINWOTU: Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Khartoum.
(SOUNDBITE OF HERMANOS GUTIERREZ'S "MESA REDONDA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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