Update: Sudan fuel crisis

On Monday, residents of Kassala complained about the shortage and unreasonable prices of fuel that caused the public transportation crisis. In Khartoum, motorcycle owners protested in front of the Ministry of Energy and Mining demanding fair treatment as vehicle owners.

A resident from Kassala, Ahmed Babiker told Radio Dabanga that the fuel crisis that has lasted for a month was exacerbated on Monday, as all petrol stations stopped operating completely in Halfa El Jadeeda and Kassala.

He explained that the price of a gallon of petrol reached SDG 750 ($13,6*) at the parallel market in Halfa, and diesel SDG 450, which caused a transportation crisis on Monday.

“The public transport station was highly overcrowded, there was a severe shortage of public transportation. On Monday, there was hardly any transportation, except the ones to Khartoum and El Gedaref,” he said.

In Khartoum, motorcycle owners protested in front of the Ministry of Energy and Mining and closed the main road for hours, demanding the same share of fuel as vehicle owners.

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Energy and Mining, Hamid Suleiman, instructed that the owners of motorcycles should be allowed to get fuel from the petrol stations if they fulfil the requirements that the motorcycles are licensed and the owners obtained authorised paper cards for fuelling.

* USD 1 = SDG 55.1375 at the time of posting. As effective foreign exchange rates can vary in Sudan, Radio Dabanga bases all SDG currency conversions on the daily middle US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS).

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