Amna Mohammed faces a complex living reality with the repercussions of the war in Sudan that has been raging for more than a year. Amna, who lost her husband in the war, has since his death sought to support her family of 4 children, struggling with a lack of financial resources and high prices that have increased by 100%.
Amna provides the cost of one meal a day for her children, as the dollar exchange rate exceeds 2,000 Sudanese pounds on the parallel market amid the deterioration of the local currency, and officials’ denial of a looming food crisis and scarcity of goods seems to be nothing more than ink on paper.
Crop plunder
Many Sudanese states are witnessing a rise in the prices of food, consumer goods and fuel. In addition to the high prices, the areas where the Rapid Support Forces are present are experiencing a scarcity and lack of food supplies.
The resistance committees in Al-Jazeera State accuse the Rapid Support Forces of looting production areas by stealing thousands of agricultural machinery and farmers’ winter and summer crops and transporting them outside the state. For the first time in 100 years, farmers in the Al-Jazeera Project have stopped cultivating their lands.
The Gezira Project covers an area of 2.2 million acres and is the largest irrigated project in Sudan and produces the country’s main crops.
shrinking agricultural areas
In turn, the Sudanese Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Abu Bakr Omar Al-Bishri, revealed in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that the areas targeted for cultivation have decreased to 36 million acres due to the war, after it was planned to cultivate 46 million acres.
Last April, Al-Bishri said that the war had affected agriculture in Sudan, cash crops and food crops, because it was a comprehensive war that included several states, as the five states of the Darfur region, the states of West and South Kordofan, Al-Jazeera and Khartoum were affected, and the impact was significant in delivering agricultural inputs to these areas and the shortage of workers.
Al-Bushra spoke about the Rapid Support Forces looting machinery, production inputs and fertilizers from the Gezira project, as it was planned to cultivate 650 thousand acres of wheat, but only between 220 and 250 thousand acres were cultivated.
In Sennar State, a human rights observatory there warned of an imminent food disaster, and said that it had documented the looting of more than 273 agricultural tractors and hundreds of barrels of fuel allocated for agriculture in the localities east and west of Sennar city by the Rapid Support Forces. The Rapid Support Forces also expanded to agricultural production areas east, west and south and looted everything, and now more than 3 million acres are outside the production circle.
Consequences of looting production areas
With the fall of the Jebel Moya area, west of Sennar State, in mid-June, into the hands of the Rapid Support Forces, the main roads for transporting goods and food supplies linking Sennar State to the states of Al-Jazirah and White Nile were closed, causing the city of Al-Managil and the state of White Nile, west of Sennar, to witness a rise and shortage in food and consumer goods.
North and South Kordofan states are also witnessing a rise in food prices, and they are under the control of the Sudanese army, but the expansion of the Rapid Support Forces in West and North Kordofan has led to the closure of roads between the states, in addition to the rise in the exchange rate, which has been reflected in the import of goods from South Sudan.
From the city of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, a bakery owner – who preferred not to be named – said that the costs of making bread have become high.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, he explained that the price of a sack of flour (25 kilograms) reached 60,000 Egyptian pounds ($23), an increase of 20,000 Egyptian pounds, while the price of a “jerrycan of oil” (a plastic container weighing 16 kilograms) reached 70,000 Egyptian pounds ($27), an increase of 25,000 Egyptian pounds from last June.
The city’s two-month power outage has exacerbated the suffering, with the cost of 4 gallons of gasoline now reaching 80,000 pounds ($30.7), some bakeries have stopped working, and traders are reluctant to sell due to the daily increase in prices.
He added that goods come to the city from outside the state through traders, but the transportation costs, in addition to looting on the roads, fees imposed by the Rapid Support Forces and bandits on the streets leading to the city of El Obeid, and the high exchange rate of the dollar, have led to an increase in prices.
Al-Jazeera State
In the city of Al-Managil, located northwest of Sennar State, eyewitnesses revealed that the flow of food commodities to the city market had stopped and that there was a shortage of fuel. A citizen in the city told Al Jazeera Net that in light of the daily rise in prices, many citizens will end up dying of hunger, with a number of them losing their main sources of income and the prices of commodities rising by 50 to 100 percent.
White Nile
From the city of Ad Duwaim in the White Nile State in central Sudan, citizen Mohammed Al-Amin told Al Jazeera Net, “The prices of flour, rice, lentils and meat have increased by 100%. The price of a 25-kilogram bag of flour has also increased from 25,000 pounds ($9.3) to 57,000 pounds ($21.3), and a sack of wheat has increased from 40,000 pounds ($15) to 95,000 pounds ($35.6).”
He added that the increase in sugar amounted to 50%, as it moved from a price of 88 thousand pounds (33 dollars) to 133 thousand pounds (49.8 dollars).
Al-Amin told Al Jazeera Net that providing alternatives is very difficult, because these are the basic commodities that citizens depend on for their food. Citizens have been content with eating one or two meals a day and have dispensed with meat and bread, in light of the city’s limited income. The situation may lead to a lack of money to buy food.
exchange rate collapse
The looting of production areas and agricultural crops by the Rapid Support Forces or the siege of civilians in some areas was not the only factor in what the markets in Sudan are witnessing. Rather, the local currency lost about 65% of its value in 3 months.
The exchange rate of the dollar against the Sudanese pound rose to exceed the 2,500 pound barrier.
Economist Haitham Fathi says that the rise in commodity prices is fundamentally linked to the decline in the value of the Sudanese pound.
Fathi added in his interview with Al Jazeera Net that the scarcity of food supplies is linked to the provision of foreign currency to import them and production inputs, in addition to the effects of the war and its expansion, which portends a food shortage.
Absence of sugar and other food commodities
The scarcity and scarcity of food commodities varies in the states of Sudan. In the city of Al-Suki in Sennar State, the emergency room said that the city is witnessing a complete lack of sugar, in addition to the lack of some other consumer goods.
In Khartoum State, the spokesman for the Southern Belt Emergency Room, Mohammed Kandasha, told Al Jazeera Net that the prices of basic commodities are witnessing a significant increase, pointing to the absence of rice, which about 80% of the capital’s residents now depend on for their food.
He added, “There is no safe path for goods to enter Khartoum, which arrives through smuggling, and the army and the Rapid Support Forces bear responsibility for any cases of citizens dying of hunger.”
Urgent humanitarian aid
For his part, the Minister of Social Welfare and Development in Khartoum State, Siddiq Farini, acknowledged the recent rise in food prices as a result of the decline in the value of the Sudanese pound.
He told Al Jazeera Net, “This equation has disrupted the availability of some goods, such as rice, which is a basic commodity for most of the takayas and children. The scarcity of some goods is due to price fluctuations, and they will soon return to abundance.”
The minister continued, “The humanitarian situation is stable despite our concerns, in light of the suspension of workers’ salaries, which has pushed them into extreme poverty and need for urgent humanitarian aid.”
The government official confirmed that the state is following up on the living conditions in the areas controlled by the army, noting that it is also monitoring them in the rest of the state with concern and is working to provide the necessary materials and give a wide opportunity to organizations working in the humanitarian field to provide aid to those in need.
He said that the Rapid Support Forces are deliberately systematically impoverishing and besieging citizens, and that the areas where they are present are witnessing a real famine.
Administrative Capital
From the eastern city of Port Sudan, merchant Asim Ahmed (a pseudonym) says that there is an abundance of food commodities, but they are witnessing a rise in prices.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Ahmed said that the majority of goods come from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the percentage of increase in their prices ranges between 30 and 40%, adding that the collapse of the local currency and the continuous customs increases caused the prices of these goods to rise.
Price control mechanisms
Regarding the mechanisms for controlling and monitoring goods and their availability in the markets and curbing the spread of prices, Al Jazeera Net did not receive a response to its inquiries from the Ministry of Trade and Supply.
Following the repercussions of the price hikes in the markets, the Prime Minister-designate issued a decision on the evening of July 18 to dismiss the Minister of Trade and Supply from his position and assign his duties to the Minister of Industry.
Earlier, the World Food Programme expected that prices of goods and services in Sudan would continue to rise by 500%.
In turn, economic researcher Omar Mahjoub Al-Hussein said that the rise in commodity prices and their scarcity are linked to the repercussions of the war, but the government can control the deterioration of the value of the pound. By providing foreign currencies in cooperation with regional partners, and following a gradual monetary policy to control the interest rate paid for short-term borrowing.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Mahjoub Al Hussein stressed the need to take control measures on commodity prices, open and facilitate the way for imports through banks, and reduce customs duties, in addition to the government securing trade routes, protecting grain stores in production areas, and preventing monopoly.
Since the outbreak of the war in mid-April 2023, the Sudanese government’s dependence on importing goods and oil from abroad has doubled.
The Ministry of Commerce said last May that “exports in the first quarter of 2024 jumped to $3.8 billion, while imports reached $8.6 billion, bringing the trade balance deficit to $4.7 billion.”
The war’s destruction of 85% of factories forced the Ministry of Trade and Supply to import goods to fill the gap, especially sugar, tea, milk and flour, while the economic contraction and destruction of markets led to millions of Sudanese losing their jobs.
