The bloody war between rival generals has deprived many Sudanese of their jobs. Without income for months, some are getting creative to support themselves and their loved ones.

Before April 15, when fighting broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Ali Seif was teaching at the Faculty of Environmental Engineering in Khartoum.

Today, this engineer is a refugee with his family in Wad Madani, a city spared from the violence 200 km further south, where most of the nearly three million displaced people in the capital are crammed.

Like many residents, his house was “robbed” by paramilitaries and he told AFP that he had “not received a salary” since March because, in areas plagued by fighting, banks are absent subscribers.

So, to survive in his IDP camp, he makes soap in the room that was given to him and his family.

“Misfortune makes you creative: I noticed that there was no more soap on the market when everyone needs it. So I decided to make soaps”, he says, not a little proud, in the middle of the plastic pots in which he mixes the soap paste before pouring it into small ice cube trays to form his soap bars.

Before the war, Michelle Elia Moussa worked as a teacher. From now on, this mother spends her days behind her small stall in the al-Hasaheisa market, halfway between Khartoum and Wad Madani.

“I lost hope and shelved my ambitions to be a brilliant teacher,” she says, glasses on her nose and apron around her waist, watching her bread.

“Without work, I cannot meet my needs”, she explains to AFP, in a country which was already one of the poorest in the world before the war and where the specters of famine now hover. , epidemics and widespread war crimes.

“It’s the first time I’ve worked on a market, I’m not comfortable, I’m ashamed, but it’s war, I have no choice,” she adds. spreading with an already expert gesture a light dough on cast iron plates to make thin pancakes.

Eshraqa Moussa has opened a small shop where she sells tea, a very popular drink in Sudan. Without it, she told AFP, she could “provide only one meal a day” for her children.

Draped in her long multicolored veil, she still remembers the hasty departure from Khartoum, at the start of a war that left nearly 4,000 dead – according to a very underestimated figure due to the chaos – and forced more than four million people to flee their homes, nearly one in ten.

“We left everything behind (…) So I came here and bought this little shop to sell tea there,” she explains.

She says she never imagined having this type of business before the war in a conservative society where tea sellers, although legion, are often stigmatized and harassed.

But with the conflict, all these taboos have been shattered. Survival and resourcefulness took precedence. “We were forced to come up with ideas”, abounds Mohammed Ali, dressed in a white polo shirt.

This former civil servant in the capital says he “partnered with colleagues to open a small mobile food stand”.

In white sheet metal, powered by a generator, it is “in the style of those found in Khartoum and which do not exist in Wad Madani”, he explains to AFP.

He sells mashed beans, falafels and other small snacks popular with his compatriots.

Enough to allow him to feed his family.

Until the next tornado: around him, all the streets of Wad Madani are buzzing with only one rumor, soon war could come.

Fighting and air raids are only 150 km away.

8/13/2023 10:44:04 –