Sudan conflict: Khartoum residents fear food shortages amid fighting

Ongoing fighting in Khartoum is causing food shortages, locals say

Ongoing fighting in Sudan's capital is now severely affecting food supplies, as well as disrupting access to water and electricity, according to Khartoum residents who spoke to the BBC.

"We only have enough food for two days," Nisreen Al-Saim said.

Ms Saim added that she and her family were now reducing the amount of food they consume in the hope that their supplies last longer.

Water and electricity cuts have affected many Sudanese homes since clashes began between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group and the Sudanese army on 15 April.

The two sides had been sharing power with the head of the army, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, as de facto leader and the head of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo as his deputy, but they have since started fighting each other.

More than 270 people had died, according to a statement from the US embassy in Khartoum.

Shops shut down

In Bahri, northern Khartoum, eyewitnesses told the BBC that the main water pumping station had been hit.

Hind, a local resident, said the frequent water outages forced her and her family to rely solely on their reserves of abri - a corn-based drink usually consumed during Ramadan - to quench their thirst.

The clashes in Khartoum have already left at least 270 people dead

Hind added that all the shops in her neighbourhood had closed except for some bakeries, and even they had little flour left.

A few days before the fighting started, the army had warned civilians to stockpile food following the deployment of RSF personnel to different points of the capital.

But Heba, another Khartoum resident, told the BBC that "only a few families" took the advice seriously, as no-one imagined that the situation would escalate to the current extent.

"We did not want to go out in the heat as we had already stocked up on food for Ramadan," Heba added.

UN aid suspended

However, Heba's neighbourhood is only getting power for two hours a day, which means the food that some families have stored may spoil.

It is not clear for how long supplies will have to hold out, given that there's no clear end to the clashes.

Two ceasefires have been announced, but both collapsed as fighting continued between the warring factions.

Eyewitnesses reported that in the Khartoum neighbourhoods where fighting has calmed enough for grocery stores to reopen, there are queues and products like bottled water are scarce.

In others, residents are still too afraid to even leave their front door.

In some neighbourhoods, long queues form outside business who dare to open their doors

Residents also reported that some shop owners in the Riyadh neighbourhood, north of the capital, have increased their prices, sometimes charging up to twice the usual amount for eggs, meat, and drinks.

"Some of them doubled their prices which is awful, while others are giving some food for free to help people in need," said Shakir, a Khartoum resident.

"People are getting very angry about it".

Shakir said he had heard similar report of price hikes in other Khartoum neighbourhoods such as Azhari, Kafouri and Bahri.

"We are all hoping this conflict will end soon but stocks are running low, and families should decrease their daily consumption if they want to survive this," he added.

Further complicating matters, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) announced the suspension of aid provision to Sudan on 16 April following the death of three of its staff in the region of Darfur.

Earlier this year, the UN said that two-thirds of Sudanese (around 15.8 million people) had already needed humanitarian aid in 2023, a situation made worse after international aid from donor countries ceased following the 2021 military coup that ousted civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Abla Karrar, a spokesperson for the political coalition known as the Forces for Freedom and Change, expressed her regret at the UN's decision to suspend aid in light of what she called a "critical situation".

"Sudan is already experiencing great economic hardship, and therefore the food stock in homes, no matter how large it is, will not be enough," she said in a statement.

Karrar also stressed the need for a truce before the country goes into a "deep humanitarian crisis".

Additional reporting by Marina Daras