How community kitchens are helping Sudan fight hunger and famine

Since war broke out between two factions of the Sudanese military in April 2023, the conflict has been relentlessly devastating for civilians. Among other crises caused by the war, half of Sudan's population regularly goes without enough to eat and 8.5 million people face what global experts call famine.

With international calls for help severely underfunded and fighting continually limiting the delivery of aid, local aid groups called emergency response centers across the country have stepped in to fill the gaps.

Funded largely by donations solicited via social media from Sudanese at home and in the diaspora, the emergency centers respond to a diverse range of community needs. This includes repairing broken power lines, organizing evacuations and filling ambulance gasoline tanks. Their most enduring role, however, was feeding the hungry.

“They are our people: our family, our friends and our neighbors,” says Waleed Khojali, a volunteer in a network of emergency centers in the East Nile region of the capital Khartoum, which together serve more than 20,000 people daily through 150 soup kitchens. “Someone has to cheer them up and give them hope in the midst of this war. We believe it is our duty.”

As volunteers chopped onions and cubes of lamb one morning at the Abu Shouk displacement camp in Darfur, their goal was simple: feed the hungry.

The fragrant rice dish they prepared that day was known as lamb kabsawas enough for 3,000 camp residents. In El Fasher, a city suffering the world's first confirmed famine since 2017, this meal was a matter of life and death. But for the volunteers it also had deep symbolism.

“Sharing food with people is deeply rooted in Sudanese culture,” explains Salah Adam, a volunteer in the Emergency Response Room of Abu Shouk, the local aid group that organizes the daily soup kitchen here. “Before the war, we ate our meals outside our homes and invited passers-by to eat with us.”

Now, in this makeshift city of tents and mud-brick houses, sharing a meal became a small link to that old life.

Since war broke out between two factions of the Sudanese military in 2023, the conflict has been relentlessly devastating for civilians. Among other crises caused by the war, half of Sudan's population regularly goes without enough to eat and 8.5 million people face what global experts call famine.

With international aid appeals severely underfunded and fighting continually limiting the delivery of aid, emergency response centers across the country have stepped in to fill the gaps. The group's efforts earned it a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and a spot on at least one prestigious unofficial shortlist.