Police on alert as fuel, bread, transport shortages deepen across Sudan

The shortages of bread, fuel, and transport have deepened in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum and the country's other states. Police have been stationed strategically as a precaution against unrest.

Callers from Khartoum told Radio Dabanga that the authorities have stationed police in all transport hubs and public gathering areas in anticipation of protests.

Callers pointed to the continued lines of vehicles waiting for hours for fuel in front of petrol stations, and queues of people waiting for bread in front of bakeries, and for cash in front of banks.

Repercussions

On the part of the government, the Director of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), Salah Abdallah (known as Salah Gosh) held a meeting with Interior Minister Ahmed Bilal in the presence of national police chief Babaker El Hussein in Khartoum on Tuesday to discuss “the current situation, the repercussions of the fuel crisis, and ways to alleviate the suffering of citizens”.

The Minister of the Interior pointed out that it was decided to temporarily use police and security apparatus vehicles for the transport of commuters in the city free of charge, in the morning and afternoon, until the fuel crisis has subsided. This would start within the next three days.

Poor reduced to begging

Eastern Sudan’s El Gedaref is witnessing a growing phenomenon of begging because of the unprecedented living hardship in the country.

People told Radio Dabanga that the crisis of bread, fuel and cash liquidity peaked in El Gedaref town explaining that the phenomenon of rows in front of bakeries and gas stations have become a familiar sight.

They explained that a large number of bakeries and fuel stations closed because of the lack of flour, benzine and diesel. Employees and citizens suffer in access to their money because of lack of liquidity in banks.

They noted that the government vacuum witnessed by the state after the death of the governor and a number of officials in the helicopter crash exacerbated the suffering of the people.

In River Nile state, the bread crisis in the large towns of Atbara and Berber has increased in an unprecedented manner, as the price of bread in the bakeries of the large market in Berber rose to two Pounds, while the price of four loaves in Atbara to 10 Pounds.

A woman in Baabakar, in Eastern Nile locality in Khartoum, told this station that she went to the bakery at dawn yesterday morning. At noon she managed to buy 20 loaves defined for one person. She said that her children have been going to school for two weeks without breakfast.