Community lifeline for millions displaced by civil war

Each day, bowls are set down on the ground in a line outside the community kitchen in Sururab, 40km north of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, for the 350 families who eat there.

- Kaamil Ahmed

Community kitchens like these have been crucial to staving off famine in Sudan over a year and a half of a war that has displaced 11.5 million people, and is part of a system of ground-level mutual aid that has provided key relief where foreign aid has been scarce.

While community kitchens feed, other necessities and support are provided by organisations called Emergency Response Rooms (ERRS), which are often neighbourhood-based. The Sudanese diaspora has also helped, by fundraising for these grassroots efforts or providing remote medical advice through telemedicine services.

Mazin Alrasheed helped set up the community kitchen in Sururab only weeks after war broke out in April 2023. Those first weeks saw the residents of Khartoum and its adjoining cities of Omdurman and Bahri scrambling to places such as Sururab, and more keep coming.

"Most of the people I've met depend on this meal we provide. The majority of them have no income. Almost 50% of the families we serve live in IDP [internally displaced people] camps in the area," he said.