After the Sudanese government cracked down on independent media in 2008, he and other journalists created the Sudanese Journalists’ Network to campaign against censorship and advocate for laws protecting press freedoms. He was head of politics and economics coverage at the Al-Ahdath, an independent newspaper based in Khartoum from 2007 to 2009, when he relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, because independent Sudanese media was collapsing. Al-Ahdath was later shut down by the government. Earlier in his career, Elsawi was a reporter at Al Sahafa, for whom he covered peace talks between the government of Sudan and the Sudan people’s Liberation Movement, including the development, signing and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. He has reported from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Uganda. In 2014, he was a Sudanese Youth Leader Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.