Reported by Al Jazeera
Sudan’s displaced people now face a mounting food crisis, with warnings of famine.
The sound of gunfire forced 50-year-old Aisha Adam to flee her home in the al-Kalakla neighbourhood of Khartoum days after war erupted in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on April 15, 2023.
She went to the neighbouring city of Omdurman, but fighting followed her and in May 2023, Adam had to find a new refuge. It brought her to a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Port Sudan, on the country’s Red Sea coast, where she lives with her orphaned grandson and nephew.
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“Amid the clashes, I left with my grandson for the bus station, intending to travel to Wad Madani in Gezira state, south of Khartoum. But I found a bus heading to Port Sudan and boarded it, even though all I knew about the city was that it was safe,” she told Al Jazeera.
The fighting between the SAF and the RSF has killed as many as 200,000 people, according to aid workers. The war has also displaced 13 million people and led to famine in parts of the country.
After Adam was forced to move to Port Sudan, she initially stayed at a shelter for IDPs in the centre of the city. In June, she and others were relocated to a displacement centre on the outskirts of the city.
Accommodation was allocated according to household size. Adam was given a tent to share with the two children under her care, and shared a boundary with two other families.
“At the first shelter, I received some assistance from organisations, other agencies and even ordinary people. But things are different here. The aid we receive has decreased significantly, so I had to try to find work to avoid starving to death,” she said.
Adam’s struggle to feed the two children comes as Sudan faces deepening food shortages. In a joint statement released on October 27, the United States Department of State warned of the deterioration in food availability and the risk of famine in the coming…