Sudan Reels As U.S. Suspends Aid Amid Ongoing War

WFP/Mohamed Galal

Food aid is delivered to displaced people in Zamzam camp in North Darfur.

3 March 2025

Radio France Internationale

Sudan has been hit hard by the United States' decision to suspend development aid to the poorest countries. The country has been plunged into a destructive war since April 2023. Despite this, the Trump administration intends to end the budget of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which it has currently suspended for 90 days.

A critical freeze for this country. The impact of the recent US decision to suspend humanitarian and development aid to the poorest countries is already being felt in Sudan.

Many NGOs have expressed their opposition and concern over the US decision.

According to the UN, thirty million people, more than half of the Sudanese population, are suffering from hunger and need emergency assistance.

Global aid in chaos as Trump proposes to slash funds and dismantle USAID

Struggle for survival

Community kitchens, launched by volunteers among the inhabitants, at the beginning of the war in 2023, are feeling a heavy impact.

These kitchens initially relied on donations from the local society and the diaspora until they were able to benefit from aid allocated by international agencies that struggle to reach conflict zones. Their goal is to help those displaced by the war, in extreme need.

With the cuts, they are facing major difficulties. The volunteers report the closure of a thousand of these kitchens. Therefore, two million people in an absolute food emergency, who benefited from this aid, no longer have access to it.

According to some estimates from local workers gathered by RFI, American aid financed between 70 and 80 percent of the sum needed to operate these kitchens, but today the usual channels for receiving cash are no longer available.

Now, some volunteers told RFI they buy products on credit from fishermen and producers in order to keep their kitchens running at a minimum. With no assurance of ever being able to repay the money borrowed.

Acute hunger

Over half the population faces high levels of acute food insecurity in Sudan, according to the UN.

Famine conditions have been confirmed in five locations in North Darfur and the eastern Nuba mountains, and expected to spread to five more areas by May of this year.

"Conditions for millions of civilians in North Darfur have become catastrophic, and now humanitarians in Sudan are grappling with the abrupt cut in US funds which have crippled numerous life-saving aid operations", according to a press release sent by Avaaz.

"This is a critical moment, as the consequences of food insecurity are already being felt in parts of South Kordofan, where families are surviving on dangerously limited food supplies, and malnutrition rates are rising sharply," warned Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan.

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