Under siege, Sudanese risk their lives to feed each other
Sameh Makki’s soup kitchen is barely 100 meters from the market, but it can take two hours to make the journey through Sudan’s war-torn streets, often through hails of bullets. The 43-year-old, his family and local volunteers have risked everything to get supplies to feed around 150 families caught in the crossfire between the army and paramilitaries.
“The only thing that matters is that people eat. If I had died while making that happen, so be it,” said Makki.
Since the war began last April between the army of General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, tens of thousands have died and millions more have been forced to flee their homes.
Initiatives like Makki’s are some of the only ways that people survive as the impoverished country hangs on the verge of famine.
Makki fled to Egypt to get medical care for his daughter and left the soup kitchen in the care of his mother and young volunteers from the neighborhood.
Like many of his compatriots, he now coordinates donations from the Sudanese diaspora to send back to those trying to survive the fighting. Shortly after the conflict’s first shots rang out, young people began volunteering to cook in their homes, volunteer coordinator Abdel Ghaffar Omar told AFP in Cairo.
The idea quickly spread and hundreds of self-funded “community kitchens” popped up across the country.
They were able to use grassroots neighborhood youth groups called “resistance committees” that had previously organized pro-democracy protests and helped coordinate the COVID-19 response.
When war erupted, the committees created Emergency Response Rooms, also known as ERRs, to provide civilians in the line of fire with health care, evacuation help and food aid.
Most ERRs run their own kitchens, others help with coordination and funding.
International aid groups call them the frontline of Sudan’s humanitarian response and the UN has said ERRs have helped over 4 million civilians across Sudan.