Flour crisis ongoing in Sudan

The bread crisis in Sudan is ongoing. In most towns people are still lining up in long queues in front of the bakeries.

The area of New Wadi Halfa in eastern Sudan's Kassala is experiencing a severe shortage of flour, an angry listener told Radio Dabanga yesterday.

“The queues in front of the bread distribution centres in New Wadi Halfa are growing, as the surrounding villages are depleted of flour for two days.”

He added that many people are now using their own reserves of flour as a substitute.

Bakers in Port Sudan, capital of Red Sea State, may have to close their bakeries soon. “We are forced to sell smaller loaves for the same price because of the lack of flour,” a baker explained.

In Hassahissa locality in El Gezira, the bakeries did not sell any bread for three days. “Before, they used to close already in the afternoon, after their quota finished. As a result, the flour and bread prices on the black market are soaring. We now pay one Pound for two tiny pieces,” a resident reported.

People in El Fasher and Nyala in North and South Darfur are equally suffering from the flour crisis as well as sky-rocketing prices of basic consumer goods.

“Apart from a lack of flour, the sky-rocketing prices of basic commodities are killing us,” a housewife told this station from El Fasher. “We pay now one Pound for one loaf of bread.”

An angry resident of Nyala, capital of South Darfur, reported that the shortage of flour and cooking gas “is caused by traders affiliated with the ruling party. They are monopolising the market.”

At least 15 bakeries in the area of Merowe in the northern Sudanese River Nile State closed their doors, a resident of the town reported. “Only one bakery still operates for a restricted number of hours a day. People are waiting for hours to buy some bread, and sometimes they not even succeed.

“The Economic Department of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) has restricted the bakeries' daily ration to two sacks of flour for each bakery,” he explained.

The bakeries in Shendi complain about fluctuating flour quotas. “Every day we must wait and see if we receive flour, and how much, while the number customers increased. More and more people from the surrounding villages come for some loaves of bread”.