Areig Elhag is the Arabic Content Editor at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She has more than 15 years of experience in journalism and political analysis.
Prior to joining the Institute, Elhag held senior roles at the U.S.-funded Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN), where she served as senior interview producer - leading the department - and as presenter and co-producer of Between Two Niles, a weekly live television program focused on Sudan’s political landscape, human rights, and regional diplomacy. The show received a prestigious Telly Award for excellence in programming. Earlier in her career, she worked as a field reporter in Sudan and produced content for international media outlets.
Elhag is a vocal advocate for human rights in Sudan - particularly women’s rights - and frequently speaks at conferences and media forums on these issues. She has been a regular contributor to Fikra Forum, the Institute’s bilingual Arabic-English platform for policy and opinion commentary.
Her interviews span the full spectrum of Sudan’s political leadership, including army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, members of the Sovereignty Council, and cabinet ministers. She has engaged with military and civilian leaders, opposition figures, and civil society actors, as well as political figures both inside Sudan and in exile. Her work also includes interviews with officials from the United States, the European Union, Arab states, and the Gulf region. Among her most notable interviews is a conversation with renowned political theorist Francis Fukuyama, exploring the emergence of a new political era in the United States and its evolving relationships with allies in Europe and the Middle East.
She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in science from Sudan University of Science and Technology, as well as an executive master’s degree in international relations and a graduate certificate in U.S. national security from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
