International aid groups are struggling to provide relief across Sudan. Mohanad El Belal, co-founder of Khartoum Aid Kitchen, shares how some local kitchens are stepping in to feed hungry civilians.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:
The War in Sudan has left millions of civilians hungry and displaced. And the United Nations says there are two big challenges to providing relief – a lack of access due to intense fighting across the country and not enough money for an effective humanitarian response. The U.N. says it needs roughly $2.7 billion, but only 12% of that budget has been funded. So in the meantime, local grassroots organizations have stepped in to fill the void.
MOHANAD EL BELAL: My name is Mohanad El Belal. I’m a British Sudanese national, and I’m the co-founder of Khartoum Aid Kitchen.
KURTZLEBEN: Back in March, El Belal called his cousin, Yaseen Abdallah, to see how he was doing. Abdallah had fled his home during the early months of the war, moving to a safer area in the neighboring city of Omdurman. Though his cousin had fled the fighting, El Belal says there was another threat. Severe hunger and malnutrition were creeping in.
EL BELAL: People had to look around, and they were realizing, OK, we still have some savings left. We can afford to eat, but they looked at their neighbor who didn’t have any savings, and they said, instead of having all two meals, we’ll have a meal and give the meal to our neighbor. And this was a community sharing sort of way of keeping people alive.
KURTZLEBEN: People soon began to run out of money, so they turned to small community kitchens, but then the kitchens couldn’t keep up with the demand they were seeing.
EL BELAL: One of the ways that the kitchens were responding to this high demand was by watering down their stews to the point that they effectively just became flavored water.
KURTZLEBEN: El Belal knew that this wasn’t solving the problem.
EL BELAL: It’s not just a lack of…
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