Sudan’s flour shortage: schools suffer from hunger

People in El Gezira complain about the lack of bread in bakeries and the long queues that form in front of them. A teacher in Omdurman reported that pupils faint because of hunger.

In Abu Oashr, residents said they have to begin queueing at the bakeries directly after dawn prayers in order to obtain bread. In Omdurman, a woman teacher told Radio Dabanga that six pupils in one of the schools in Dar El Salaam district had not eaten for a long time and fainted in the classroom.

“Teachers have learned that most of the students do not eat all day long, except in the afternoon after their mothers return from work,” she said. They only get one meal a day in the area, considered one of the poorest in Khartoum state.

The head of the popular committees in Dar El Salaam confirmed that some children do not get breakfast. He said that recently, an organisation that used to provide breakfast meals to children of poor families, halted its activities. He called upon civil society organisations to provide breakfast instead to the poor basic stage pupils in Omdurman.

On 25 January, the Sudanese government announced a rise of fuel prices, including a threefold increase in the price of cooking gas, raising the price of cylinders from SDG25 to SDG75 ($12.25). The soaring price for gas since the price adjustment, as well as basic commodities have caused many people in Sudan to struggle to obtain food. Long queues in front of bakeries, which now sell smaller pieces of loaves for the same price, are not uncommon.