Ramadan in Sudan: A year after war began, hunger crisis looms over country

The arrival of Ramadan had always been a happy and peaceful occasion for Hanadi Ali, a 55-year-old native of the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Last year, Ali was getting ready for the Muslim holy month as usual, which includes buying supplies such as meat, sugar, oil, and sweets a week or two in advance to make family meals for Iftar.

Ali recalls the tradition of Sudanese men often breaking their fasts before going to mosques in groups, followed by enlightening and sometimes lighthearted conversations. “Then, everyone, men and women, would gather during Tarawih and return home happy,” Ali tells TRT World. “We were safe.”

But just days before Eid al Fitr, a war erupted in Sudan last April 15, when a bloody power struggle between Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Daglo pulled Sudan into a whirlwind of chaos and violence.

Ali and her family are among an estimated eight million Sudanese who have been displaced from their homes due to fighting between the army and paramilitary across the country, heavily concentrated around Khartoum and some other regions like Darfur and Kordofan.

Ramadan this year is noticeably different, says Ali, who owned and ran a mini market in Khartoum. She travelled with her daughters, sister, and nephews to Gaderef in the east of Sudan, before being uprooted in Egypt, where they now live.

“I did not feel the taste of Ramadan because I lost loved ones. I lost the presence of my neighbours. I lost conversations with my family and brothers,” Ali laments, adding that performing Tarawih has also been difficult as she injured her leg during her journey to Egypt.

Throughout the precarious passage, Ali worried about the reception that awaited her and her family at their destination. Would they be welcomed kindly? How would her schooling children be treated by their peers? Her children were worried they would be bullied in a new environment.

Fortunately, their fears faded upon reaching Cairo.

“We found the Egyptian people understanding and aware [of the situation in Sudan], but life conditions differ a little. I don’t know, perhaps because of the high price, life here is a little more harsh than [where I’m from]. Life is easier in Sudan during Ramadan,” Ali reminisces.

Slipping into famine

Days before Ramadan, the UN Security Council called for a ceasefire in Sudan to coincide with the Muslim holy month, in addition to allowing aid to reach millions of people in desperate need of food.

With the humanitarian response spread thin, nearly five million people could suffer adverse hunger in parts of the country in the coming months, with almost 730,000 children projected to suffer severe acute malnutrition.

According to Elsadig Elnour, Islamic Relief country director for Sudan, a “famine is looming”.

“The whole country is slipping now into hunger, and most of the infrastructure has been destroyed,” Elnour tells TRT World from Gaderef.

“If you look at the capital, it has become like a ghost city. Everything has been destroyed — the factories and the hospitals, schools, all of this infrastructure has been destroyed, so the need is very, very high,” he adds.

After almost a year of fighting between the army and the RSF, thousands of people have been killed. More than eight million people have been displaced inside and outside the country in what has been described as the world’s largest displacement crisis.

Souad Fakir and her family initially did not want to leave their home in the north of Jabra, near Al Modarat, a neighbourhood in Khartoum, in hopes that the war would be short-lived. “Throughout this period,” Fakir says, “we lived with the sounds of cannons, planes, scattered bullets, and the shaking of buildings with the sounds of bombing.”

Forty days in, they packed up and began their journey to the city of Kosti in White Nile, about 360 kilometres from Khartoum.

In what would usually be a five-hour trip, Fakir and her family instead spent 16 hours on the road; the bus they were travelling in encountered more than 15 RSF outposts, where passengers were asked to show their IDs. Fakir says young men were asked to get off the bus and those who were assumed to be in the army or had military training were detained. Their fate is not known.

The family safely reached a relative’s house in Kosti, but in July, she returned to Khartoum with her sister after they lost contact with their brother during a communications blackout. Her brother, who suffers from diabetes, had refused to leave his home when they left for Kosti the first time.

Once again, they passed by RSF outposts. Fakir recounts being subjected to mistreatment and accusations of being loyal to the army, in addition to being questioned about the reason for their presence in Jabra. Their phones were looted, and their bags were searched.

Fakir says the ordeal was “psychologically” draining but they finally managed to reach their brother, “whom we found suffering from a diabetic wound on his foot and unable to find treatment”.

“All the houses in the neighbourhood were empty without their residents,” she says. The siblings began making their way back to Kosti the following day.

They began a second exodus outside the country to Cairo, where they now reside, after the RSF reached Madani city, and gained access to Kosti. “We miss our homeland and our safe haven,” Fakir tells TRT World. “The holy month is upon us and we are suffering from the scourge of war and instability. We hope for a new morning and pray to God to bless our country with security and stability.”

Countless other Sudanese became internally displaced for the second time after fighting reached Madani, the capital of Jezira state. During this time, Islamic Relief’s country director for Sudan, Elnour, says the aid organisation extended its operations to Gadaref and Port Sudan.

“Our office in Khartoum was looted completely, and no one can even check what is remaining and what was looted,” Elnour says. “Even our houses are occupied.”

He adds that together with UN agencies in other parts of the country, like central Darfur, an area controlled by the RSF, cross-border aid delivery from Chad that includes staple food like sorghum and other nutritional supplies has been imperative in responding to the needs of those internally displaced.

The aid organisation is doing its best to respond to needs in the country, and plans on distributing food bags from Islamic Development Bank to some 8,000 families or 40,000 people in Kordofan, Gaderef, and the Blue Nile this Ramadan. However, Elnour adds that this will not be enough because of the big gap between the aid they receive and their actual needs.

The fact that the country has experienced regular internet and communication blackouts since the war erupted does not help. The most recent incidence lasted for almost three weeks, Elnour says, affecting communication, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Lack of food production

Sudan has often been referred to as a global food basket. But the severe impact of the war on agricultural production is now driving critical levels of hunger and steep price hikes in the country.

Kordofan and Darfur have missed agricultural season, which usually starts in July, after the war broke out last April, Elnour explains. “The other breadbasket city is Madani, and over there, they cultivate wheat during the winter and they were attacked in December during the time of agriculture,” he adds.

“If the war continues, they will miss the coming season,” Elnour says. At the same time, he notes, prices have also soared, leading to unavailability of commodities and goods on the markets. A loaf of bread costs about $1 in Gaderef, which is considered to be on the lower end when compared to the rest of the country.

In places such as Khartoum, Darfur, and Kordofan, prices of food and rent can reach up to six times as much as they were before April last year, Elnour shares. Adding to the dire situation, Sudanese who are government employees have not received their salaries for at least the last six months.

Aid has been particularly hard getting into Khartoum, where fighting has not died down, even as Ramadan began, he adds. “On the second day of Ramadan, fighting intensified around the building of the [national] TV and broadcasting area, which was captured for the last nine months by the RSF, and now it has been freed by the [army].

‘Forgotten war’

In a joint appeal with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) last month in February, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called for $2.7 billion in funding that will go towards humanitarian aid for 14.7 million people within Sudan. So far, only 4.9 percent of the amount needed has been funded through this plan.

Speaking to diplomats at the UN in Geneva, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said, “Sudan keeps getting forgotten by the international community," a sentiment that Elnour echoes.

"There is a certain kind of obscenity about the humanitarian world, which is the competition of suffering, a competition between places: 'I have more suffering than you, so I need to get more attention, so I need to get more money,’” Griffiths further remarked, adding that the international community needed to take decisive action with an enhanced sense of urgency.

“I speak as a humanitarian worker, I don't know why donors [aren’t] funding Sudan, because now, food security has become a priority and it is in daily discussion,” according to Elnour.

“We are discussing the preparedness [for] famine right now … On the horizon, famine is looming, and still, the world is just sleeping.” As the rainy season approaches in a few months, Elnour adds the situation may potentially give rise to yet another crisis, which could see flooding and disease outbreaks occur.

He reiterates that Sudan has become “the forgotten war” and says that “the country's problem is big”.

“As I said, the whole country is slipping into a hunger situation now, and everyone is expecting a famine in this country,” according to Elnour, adding that the international community should respond to these needs.

As Elnour puts it, “We need this war to end. If this war continues, the suffering will continue.”