The United States’ decision to suspend foreign aid is exacerbating a catastrophic hunger crisis in Sudan, where millions risk dying from malnutrition-related illnesses.
Since assuming office in January, US President Donald Trump’s administration has put on leave or fired the vast majority of employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and paused almost all of the global projects it funds.
Last year, USAID contributed 44 percent to Sudan’s $1.8bn humanitarian response, according to the United Nations.
A portion of this sum went to supporting Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), which are neighbourhood relief groups that support hundreds of “community kitchens” across the country.
“About 80 percent of the 1,460 community kitchens across Sudan were shut down [when USAID paused all funding],” said Hajooj Kuka, the spokesperson for the ERRs in Khartoum state.
Filling the gap
Since a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into civil war in April 2023, communal kitchens have kept hundreds of thousands of people alive in regions where UN agencies and global relief organisations are unable to reach due to the wilful obstruction of aid by the warring parties, according to local and foreign relief workers.
Despite the efforts of ERR volunteers, more than 600,000 people in Sudan are coping with famine levels of hunger and some eight million are on the verge of slipping into famine, according to the global hunger monitor, the UN Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
The pause in USAID funding now risks compounding the hunger crisis.
According to Iyad Agha, the humanitarian coordinator for international nongovernmental organisations in Sudan, some organisations obtained waivers from the US government to continue administering life-saving services.
However, many of these services were eventually terminated after a subsequent review by the US determined that they were not necessary to sustain life. Days later, the Trump administration reversed some terminations and permitted some services to resume.
Agha said Washington’s decisions appear to be “completely random”.
“NGOs are paralysed and don’t know how to proceed amidst the chaos and confusion and the affected people [who need aid in Sudan] are the most impacted by all of this chaos,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The problem is that if some other donors want to step in [for the absence of USAID] there is [a large gap] to fulfil,” Agha added.
ERRs have taken matters into their own hands to find alternative funding.
Kuka said that community kitchens have solicited funding from the Sudanese diaspora and smaller charitable organisations in order to keep providing meals to beleaguered civilians during the holy month of Ramadan, which began earlier in March.
Their efforts have helped hundreds of community kitchens to reopen across the country, yet 63 percent remain shuttered since the US government paused most foreign aid, said Kuka.
“There is only so much we can do. There simply isn’t enough food for people,” he told Al Jazeera.
“But we have started an online drive for people to donate and during Ramadan, people tend to donate more during this time,” he added.
Impediments and looting
Both sides in Sudan’s civil war are responsible for generating the hunger crisis, say local and foreign relief workers.
One issue cited by some relief workers is that UN agencies recognise the Sudanese army as the de facto government.
This policy has empowered the army to approve or deny aid shipments coming across the borders from neighbouring countries such as Chad and South Sudan, which the army does not control. Critics previously told Al Jazeera that humanitarians should work with the relevant authorities in each area of Sudan in order to reach as many needy people as possible.
In addition, UN agencies that treat the army as the de facto government are required to base all humanitarian operations out of Port Sudan, which makes it logistically difficult to reach faraway regions such as the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan and the sprawling region of Darfur.
The army is also accused of imposing bureaucratic impediments to obstruct and delay aid shipments.
“The army’s procedures are very cumbersome. It’s a mountain of paperwork,” explained Leni Kinzli, the spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP).
“We have to deal with the different authorities: military intelligence, the Humanitarian Aid Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Intelligence Services and National Intelligence Services.
“Basically, for any [aid truck to move], we need to get a stamp from all of those agencies,” she told Al Jazeera.
Analysts and relief workers also accuse the SAF of prohibiting aid to regions under RSF control. But army spokesperson Nabil Abdullah has repeatedly denied this accusation and criticised the RSF for starving civilians.
Hind al-Atif, the spokesperson for the ERR in Sharq el-Nile, a sprawling neighbourhood in Khartoum, accused the RSF of exacerbating the hunger crisis.
She said that the group looted all the main markets in Khartoum ahead of Ramadan and that many civilians are hesitant to leave their neighbourhoods to look for food out of fear that they could be attacked at RSF checkpoints.
“People are scared to flee because the RSF often robs people of their money and phones,” she told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera contacted the RSF’s press office for comment on allegations that its fighters are robbing civilians at gunpoint and looting markets, but the group did not respond before publication.
Insecurity and starvation
As fighting escalates between the RSF and Sudanese army, local relief groups and aid agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to reach beleaguered civilians.
In the Zamzam displacement camp, where more than 500,000 people are sheltering in North Darfur and struggling to survive a famine, the WFP was forced to suspend aid operations when the RSF shelled the camp on February 10 and 11.
WFP was providing food vouchers to about 60,000 people in Zamzam through a local organisation.
“Our partners on the ground were forced to evacuate. They were forced to run for their lives [due to RSF shelling] and that’s why we had to pause assistance,” said Kinzli, the agency’s spokesperson.
The battle for Khartoum is also causing major displacement throughout Sharq el-Nile, pushing the few remaining communal kitchens to try and feed thousands of new arrivals.
As people grow more desperate, Kuka says that many are trying to search for fish in the Nile or grow vegetables in their gardens, yet the quantity of food most people manage to eat is hardly enough.
He noted that ERRs are reaching out to the European Union, as well as UN agencies, to try and fill the gap left behind by USAID. If nobody steps up, Kuka warned that hundreds of thousands of people will starve and die from malnutrition-related diseases.
“We are speaking about 1.8 million people who benefit from these kitchens. What does it mean if they can no longer get food?” asked Kuka.
“People are already on edge. We [as ERRs] are just trying our best to stop more regions in Sudan from slipping into complete famine. But if this [food shortage] continues, then there will be more and more pockets of famine across the country.”
