In Sudan, community kitchens and local organizations are providing essential support to displaced families amid limited foreign aid. The Sudanese diaspora also plays a vital role through fundraising and telemedicine services.
Every day, bowls are set down on the ground in a line outside the community kitchen in Sururab, 25 miles north of Sudan ’s capital, Khartoum, for the 350 families who eat here. Community kitchens like these have been crucial to, and is part of a system of ground-level mutual aid that has provided key relief where foreign aid has been scarce.
While community kitchens feed, other necessities and support are provided by organisations called Emergency Response Rooms, which are often neighbourhood-based. The Sudanese diaspora has also helped, by fundraising for these grassroots efforts or providing medical advice through telemedicine services. Only weeks after war broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries. Those first weeks saw the residents of Khartoum and its adjoining cities of Omdurman and Bahri scrambling to places such as Sururab, and more keep coming, including 130 families who recently arrived after escalated fighting in Gezira state, south of the capital. “Most of the people I’ve met depend on this meal we provide. The majority of them have no income and have been displaced because of the war. Almost 50% of the families we serve live in IDP camps in the area,” says Alrasheed of the camps for internally displaced people. “International organisations’ efforts are beneficial but they often come at irregular intervals and sometimes face distribution issues,” he says, also pointing to administrative problems that beset large organisations. “For instance, flour distributed in late September had an expiry date in October. Also, some families received impractical amounts, leading them to sell the extra.” Photograph: Mazin Alrasheed/The Guardian Sudan has a longstanding tradition of neighbourly support and generosity, but the sense of solidarity within communities was strengthened during the protest movement that began in 2018 to oust the president, Omar al-Bashir
SUDAN WAR AID COMMUNITY SUPPORT DISPLACED FAMILIES
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