Sudan’s life-saving community kitchens on verge of collapse

A network of community kitchens in Sudan – a crucial lifeline for millions of people caught in the civil war – is on the verge of collapse, according to a report.

The warning from humanitarian organization Islamic Relief comes after a UN-backed global hunger monitor confirmed famine was spreading in conflict zones.

Locally run kitchens operate in areas that are difficult to access for international humanitarian groups, but are at risk of closure due to neglect, lack and exhaustion of volunteers.

The Sudanese people have been brutalized by more than two years of war after fighting broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

This has created what the UN has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with estimates that more than 24 million people are facing severe food shortages.

Most kitchens “will close if nothing changes in six months, with perhaps one or two survivors in each area,” one volunteer was quoted as saying by the Islamic Relief report.

These local initiatives often operate alongside social networks known as emergency response rooms, which have filled the gaps from the collapse of government services and limited international aid.

Everyone, from teachers to engineers to young people, participates.

Financial fragility is the most pressing problem facing kitchens. They are now financed mainly by the Sudanese diaspora, after USAID budget cuts at the start of the year.

“It was like someone had cut a rope that we were holding on to,” said one volunteer.

“Before March, we had a little steady flow that allowed us to plan. We knew we could serve at least one meal a day. Now? Last month, I would say there were 10 days where we went to sleep not knowing if we could cook the next day. Uncertainty is worse than having nothing.”

There are serious operational problems, such as lack of drinking water and firewood.

Aid agencies say both sides are hampering deliveries with delays and bureaucratic refusals. Worse still, markets are often disrupted by blockades, insecurity and looting.

The situation is worst in the besieged towns of El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, and Kadugli, in the southern Kordofan state. Both are largely cut off from commercial supplies and humanitarian aid.

The latest report from global food security monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase (IPC) network, confirmed famine conditions in these cities and projected a risk of famine in 20 additional areas in Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan.

In El-Fasher, kitchens were reduced to serving fodder for animals when the town finally fell to the RSF last week.

Food security in Sudan shows sharp contrasts along conflict lines, according to the IPC report.

“Conflict always decides who eats and who doesn’t.”

In areas where violence has subsided, the situation has started to improve, the report said.

Some international aid agencies also contribute to emergency response rooms, although they have failed to replace U.S. funding.

But even in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital Khartoum and largely under military control and with abundant commercial supplies, the scale of need often exceeds available resources, leading kitchens to ration food.

The city has become a hub for people displaced by war and prices are high.

“This is the hardest part of my day,” a volunteer from Omdurman was quoted as saying.

“We don’t have a formal system. We feed everyone, but one day we had to tell a mother at the end of the day that we had nothing left for her two children and that she had to come back early tomorrow. She didn’t even cry, she just looked deflated.

“I went home and I couldn’t even talk to my own family that night. The shame of having food in my stomach and this child didn’t, it’s a heavy feeling for me.”

The emergency response rooms have been hailed as a model of UN-led reforms that focus on shifting power and resources to those most affected by crises.

This year they were nominated for a Nobel Prize.

But after nearly three years, the volunteers find themselves increasingly alone, facing burnout and danger.

They must work with whoever controls their region and have become targets when territory changes hands, as they are sometimes seen by both sides as collaborating with the other side.

Limited communications are a real problem. Long-term internet outages make it difficult to transfer money through a mobile banking system, and cell phones are a prime target for looters.

“They depend on this mobile money,” Shihab Mohamed Ali, of Port Sudan-based Islamic Relief Sudan, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

“They were taking the money in their cell phones and were going to bring goods from distant areas. So they were going through different checkpoints. And sometimes they were getting robbed, their cell phone was confiscated. And if the cell phone is taken, that means the money is taken.”

Worse still, he says, “there are reports of members of community kitchens even being killed.”

“My biggest fear is that in six months the community will be completely exhausted,” says a volunteer from Khartoum.

“We are all getting poorer and angrier.”

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