Almost 80% of the emergency food kitchens launched to assist people left impoverished by Sudan’s civil war, have been forced to shut due to the suspension of development aid from the US, according to BBC News on February 25th.
Aid workers said President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing aid from USAID for 90 days has resulted in the closure of over 1,100 communal kitchens.
The kitchens were run by activists as part of emergency response rooms to assist the casualties and injuries from the conflict, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been displaced.
“People are knocking on the volunteers’ doors,” said Duaa Tariq, an emergency room organiser. “People are screaming from hunger in the streets.”
It is a “huge setback” says Andrea Tracy, an ex-USAID official who has set up a fund, known as the Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition, which is for private donations to the emergency rooms.
Tracy added: “I think we can shore up [emergency kitchens],” she said, “but the reality is that [private funding] are going to have to do even more now, because even if humanitarian assistance resumes, it’s never going to be what it was.”
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