Warring Parties in Sudan Target Local Volunteers Fighting Famine
Agencies - Moatinoon
Local volunteers who have been helping to feed the most vulnerable Sudanese during the 17 months of war say attacks on them by the warring factions are making it difficult to provide life-saving aid amid the world’s worst hunger crisis.
Many volunteers have fled under the threat of arrest or violence, and the community kitchens they set up in a country where hundreds of people are estimated to be dying daily from hunger and related diseases have stopped serving meals for weeks at a time.
Reuters spoke to 24 volunteers running kitchens in Sudans central Khartoum State, the western Darfur region, and parts of the east, where millions of people have been displaced from their homes since fighting erupted between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
International humanitarian agencies, unable to deliver food aid to parts of Sudan at risk of famine, have increased their support for these groups, but this has made them more targeted by RSF-affiliated looters, according to ten volunteers who spoke to Reuters by phone.
“We were safe when the RSF didn’t know about the funding,” said Jihad Salah Eldin, a volunteer who left Khartoum last year and spoke from Cairo. “They see our kitchens as a source of food,” she added.
Both sides have also attacked or detained volunteers on suspicion of collaborating with their opponents, according to twelve volunteers.
Most of the volunteers spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation.
A volunteer in Bahri, the city that forms Sudan’s greater capital along with Khartoum and Omdurman, said RSF-uniformed forces stole the phone he uses to receive donations via a mobile banking app, along with 3 million Sudanese pounds (about 1,200) in cash designated for food in June.
This was one of five incidents this year in which he said he was attacked or harassed by the RSF, which controls the neighborhoods where he oversees 21 kitchens serving about 10,000 people. Later that same month, forces stormed a house containing one of the kitchens at midnight and stole bags of corn and beans. The volunteer, who was sleeping there, said he was tied up, gagged, and whipped for hours by forces who wanted to know who was funding the group.
Reuters could not independently verify his account, but three other volunteers said he informed the rest of the group about the events at the time.
Such incidents have become more frequent as international funding for community kitchens increased over the summer, according to eight volunteers from Khartoum state, which is largely controlled by the RSF.
Many kitchens do not keep records of attacks, while others declined to provide details for fear of attracting more unwanted attention. However, volunteers described 25 incidents targeting their kitchens or volunteers in the state since July alone, including more thefts, beatings, and the detention of at least 52 people.
Groups running the kitchens reported the deaths of at least three volunteers in armed attacks, including one who they said was shot dead by RSF forces in the Shajara neighborhood of Khartoum in September. The identities of other attackers were not immediately clear, and Reuters could not verify the accounts.
