Tag: Emergency

Sana Basim, Head of Programmes for Islamic Relief Lebanon, looks back on the country’s ‘Black Wednesday’ – the deadliest day of bombing in many years.

Lebanon carries many dates etched into its memory, days of loss, pain, and survival. But 8 April will remain one of the ugliest scars, a date marked by inhumanity, injustice, and brutal violence that cannot be forgotten.

Despite the 2024 ceasefire, Israeli violations never truly ceased. Attacks on southern Lebanon continued, relentless and normalised.

Then came the escalation following the US‑Israel‑Iran war, triggering mass displacement across the country. Nearly 20% of Lebanon’s population was forced from their homes. Once again, civilians paid the highest price.

Islamic Relief Lebanon has been among the frontline responders, working tirelessly to support conflict‑affected communities.

In the days following this deadliest hour, I spoke with several displaced people. What struck me most was not their words but their silence. They didn’t know what to say. Yet one fear, unspoken but unavoidable, was written clearly on their faces:

Are we going to become another Gaza?

Will the world let that happen to us, the way it let it happen to Palestinians in Gaza?

Their silence was deafening. So were the questions in their eyes.

As a humanitarian worker, someone who speaks about humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law, and justice, I found myself utterly speechless. In moments like this, those concepts felt hollow. For the people of Lebanon, they had become words on paper, stripped of meaning, value, and protection.

A day like any other

April 8 began like any other day of crisis. My team was distributing water in one of the shelters in Beirut, while I was preparing situation reports and drafting emergency response plans.

Since the war began, Islamic Relief Lebanon has been operating in a hybrid modality: staff living outside Beirut working remotely or coming in when needed, while Beirut‑based staff continued to report to the office. That Wednesday was no different.

Then I heard a loud sound.

At first, I thought it was Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier, something they often do, which terrorises the population. But then came another blast. And another.

We gathered in one room where we could see thick grey smoke rising into the sky. Panic set in. Phones started ringing with non-stop calls, messages, and alerts. Shock, fear, and disbelief filled the space.

HR immediately launched a headcount poll on our staff WhatsApp group to make sure everyone was safe. The security focal point rushed to contact the distribution team.

One of the airstrikes had landed just 3 kilometres away from Islamic Relief distributions, but all staff remained safe.

The team reported chaos at the shelter. Children were crying and screaming. The sound of the strikes was overwhelming. Smoke filled the air. The smell of explosives was strong and suffocating. Fear was everywhere.

Soon after, videos began flooding our phones. They felt unreal like scenes from a movie, except this was real life.

Bombs dropping everywhere. People crying and running. Ambulance sirens cutting through the air. People honking on the roads as panic spread. Many abandoned their cars in the middle of the street and ran, desperate to escape.

Within minutes, Beirut, the city of life, movement, and resilience, turned into a horror scene.

Later, media reported that over 100 airstrikes were carried out in just 10 minutes, without any prior warning. Residential and commercial buildings were hit. People went missing. More than 300 casualties were reported, with hundreds more injured.

That hour changed everything. And for many, survival itself became an act of resistance.

A fragile, temporary peace

Last night, a 10-day ceasefire was announced – a welcome piece of news but one which is being met with some scepticism in Lebanon.

The agreement applies only to the part of the country lying north of the Litani river and, more worryingly, only to air-based attacks and not Israel’s ground invasion.

People remain fearful that fighting will break out again after the 10-day pause, if it even lasts that long.

Islamic Relief hopes the ceasefire holds and urges the international government with leverage and all parties involved to ensure that it is fully respected.

Islamic Relief is working to support vulnerable communities in Lebanon throughout this crisis. Please help us to continue this life-saving work. Donate to our Lebanon Emergency Appeal today.

Sudan is at a critical moment. Three years since violence escalated, the country is experiencing a deepening split between the east and west coast. In parts of the east and centre, there are fragile signs of stability.

But in the west, the situation is rapidly deteriorating – with horrific violence, deepening hunger, and entire communities cut off from help.

For millions of people, it is a daily fight to survive.

A shifting war

In late 2025, global attention briefly turned to El Fasher in Darfur after 18 months of siege and horrific violence – but attention has faded again, even as the suffering continues.

Today, the epicentre of the war has now shifted into the Kordofan region, where heavy fighting and drone strikes are ongoing as aid is being blocked. Entire communities are being pushed into isolation.

More than 1 million people are now displaced within Kordofan alone, and over 88,000 people have fled the region since October 2025.

Without urgent action, the situation will continue to deteriorate.

Hunger and the risk of famine

Severe hunger has spread across Sudan. The war and actions of armed groups have obstructed humanitarian aid, looted markets and supply routes, shattered the economy and essential services, and forced farmers and communities from their land.

Today, more than 61% of people across Sudan – over 29 million people – are suffering acute food shortages.

The worst levels of hunger are now in Darfur and Kordofan, where violence is raging, and towns are under siege.

In late 2025, the IPC confirmed famine in and around El Fasher in Darfur and Kadugli in South Kordofan, warning that it would spread without urgent action.

In February this year, famine was confirmed to have spread to another two areas in North Darfur, and at least 20 more areas are at high risk of famine.

Since the start of the crisis, local communities and mutual aid groups have been at the heart of the response. These efforts have stopped famine from spreading even further.

A health system under attack

Sudan’s health sector has been decimated.

Many health facilities are out of service due to attacks, lack of funds, and shortages of staff, medical supplies, water and electricity.

Health workers are facing unprecedented violence. Hundreds of attacks on healthcare facilities have been documented since the start of the war.

Under international humanitarian law, health facilities and workers must be protected and must never be targeted, but despite this, at least 122 health workers have been killed.

Displacement, return and uncertainty

More than 9 million people are displaced across Sudan, with the majority in Darfur and Kordofan, where ongoing violence continues to prevent people from returning home. Many families in eastern and central Sudan remain displaced as they can’t afford to return or have nothing to go back to.

In places like Gedaref in eastern Sudan, we are seeing newly displaced families arrive, fleeing the violence in Kordofan and the border regions with South Sudan.

At the same time, more than 3.5 million previously displaced people have now been able to return home to places like Khartoum and Wad Medani, but there is little for people to return to. Many are returning to communities where infrastructure is damaged or destroyed, and basic services remain limited.

In late January, the government returned to Khartoum, and the central bank finally reopened there. Aid agencies are also beginning to move back, with Islamic Relief restarting our projects in Khartoum and Omdurman last year. However, major challenges remain.

Returnees need greater support from Australia and the international community so they can begin to rebuild their lives.

Aid is vital, but it cannot end the crisis alone

Humanitarian aid is saving many lives across Sudan.

Where access is possible, aid is helping to prevent starvation and provide essential support.

Since the outbreak of the war in April 2023, Islamic Relief has delivered aid to over 1.2 million people across Sudan. Our local teams are working tirelessly across the country, including in central Darfur, north and west Kordofan, Khartoum, Gedaref, Red Sea State, Al Jazirah, Sennar and Blue Nile.

We are providing food and clean water to families, delivering vital medicines and supplies to health clinics, and supplying seeds and livestock to farmers so they can earn a living.

Many Islamic Relief staff and volunteers in Sudan have been displaced themselves, yet they continue to do everything they can to support the most at-risk communities.

Although more aid is needed, aid alone cannot solve this crisis – we need sustained diplomatic engagement to kickstart the peace process, agree a ceasefire, protect civilians, and ensure humanitarian access.

Sudan cannot be overlooked

The crisis in Sudan is critical. Australia must act urgently.

This includes:

• Scaling up diplomatic efforts, including through the UN Security Council, to push for an immediate, nationwide ceasefire as the first step towards lasting peace.
• Protecting civilians, aid workers and local emergency responders by backing efforts to prevent further attacks, atrocities and International Humanitarian Law violations.
• Securing rapid, safe, sustained humanitarian access across Sudan, especially to conflict-affected and besieged areas, so aid can reach every community in need.
• Increasing funding now, especially to local aid groups and women-led organisations, to help stop famine spreading further and provide life-saving assistance and services, especially to women and children forced to flee their homes.
• Supporting a regional response to this crisis, working with neighbouring countries to increase humanitarian assistance to refugees, enable safe cross-border access for humanitarian aid, and prevent the conflict from spreading further.
 

As violence shifts and intensifies and hunger deepens, millions of people remain in urgent need of protection and support. Without immediate action, the risk of further famine, displacement and loss of life will only grow.

Sudan cannot be overlooked. Call on the Australian government to act urgently to help end the crisis or find out other ways to help the people of Sudan here.

Shihab Mohamedali, Islamic Relief’s Senior Programme Manager in Sudan, was forced to flee his home in the capital, Khartoum, at the start of a violent conflict that has since engulfed the country. Three years on, he is finally returning to Khartoum – but the city he is coming back to is not the one he left behind.

On the road south out of Khartoum, on those first terrible days of the war, I saw 2 things at once. On one side, a group of people looting a store, carrying whatever they could find on their shoulders, on donkey carts, on motorbikes.

And not far away at all, on the other side, a group of young men were standing in the middle of the road, handing out sandwiches, water and juice to every family passing through. I could not believe what I was seeing. The same moment. Same road. Same crisis. And people are responding to it in completely opposite ways. I have not stopped thinking about those images in the 3 years since.

The Thursday we thought was just a Thursday

Our last working day was 13 April 2023 – a normal Thursday. Some of us left laptops at our desks, passports in drawers, cameras on shelves – the things you leave when you expect to come back after the weekend. Nobody thought to take anything home.

On the morning of 15 April, Khartoum became a war zone. I was living close to a military artillery section. For 12 days, I heard shooting day and night without pause.

We left the house once, my son and I, to find food and turned back when the fighting came too close. Islamic Relief evacuated us on the twelfth day of the conflict. A driver arrived at our house. I told my family to leave everything, that we would be back in a few weeks, so we did.

At every checkpoint on the road to Gedaref, an armed man came out to inspect. I knew what they could do – ask someone to step out, take the car, order the family to walk. That is what had happened to others. I kept reading Ayatul Kursi (a verse from the Qur’an) and, by the mercy of Allah, we passed through each time.

A city stripped to its bones

Our office was looted completely – vehicles, equipment, everything. It wasn’t just theft – it was deliberate destruction of anything that could not be taken. The guard was forced out. When he returned days later, he photographed what was left[MG1] [CM2]   and sent the images to the team in Gedaref. It was through those photographs that Shihab and his colleagues first saw the scale of the destruction.

Across Khartoum, the story was the same. Walls were opened up to pull out copper wiring, which could be sold for scrap – one of the few materials that still holds value in a collapsed economy. Doors and windows were removed entirely. Holes were dug into the floors of homes by people searching for hastily stashed gold. Wooden bedframes were cut and burned as cooking fuel because there was nothing else.

My mother had been displaced to the River Nile State. When she returned and saw her house, she said, “I immediately got stomach pain.” She asked my brothers to take her back to the River Nile State.

Those who refused to leave paid the hardest price. A colleague lost her father – he stayed, was detained, and died before the family could reach him. In Halfayat Elmilook in Khartoum North, people were found so weakened that they had to be rushed to hospital. Some did not survive the day they arrived.

We were displaced too but we still had work to do

There is one aspect of this crisis that does not get talked about enough: when the war erupted, Islamic Relief’s Khartoum staff became displaced people ourselves. We were scattered – to Gedaref, to Port Sudan, to wherever family or circumstance took us.

Some colleagues lost their homes entirely. Some lost relatives. And yet, from those same displacement locations, we kept working.

In those 12 days under fire, my 16-year-old daughter stopped sleeping. She would leave her room at night and come to sleep near her mother. I understood what was happening. I have spent my career in humanitarian work, learning what displacement does to people.

Slowly, she came through it. Alhamdulillah, she is now studying in Türkiye, and this year she was among 8 girls selected from a Hadith competition to travel to Umrah. I cannot describe what that meant.

It is a strange thing to be a humanitarian worker and a displaced person at the same time. To be supporting families in camps while quietly dealing with your own losses – your own looted home, your own family split across cities, your own uncertainty about when or whether you would be able to go back home.

That weight has sat with all of us throughout these years, even as the work continued.

Closing the Khartoum office didn’t just mean losing a building. It meant losing direct access to millions of people in the city where the need was most acute. Reopening is not simply a matter of finding office space. It means re-earning trust from communities who went through something enormous without us there, and rebuilding relationships with partners and health workers who are now operating in a city that looks almost nothing like the one we left.

Islamic Relief is back – distributing cash assistance to families who have returned to empty homes, supporting health facilities, and providing food to people beginning again with nothing. Coming home is not the end of the journey. It is the beginning of a long piece of work.

The first sleep back home

A relative of mine returned to his house recently and found it had been looted; there was almost nothing left. He and his family cleaned, and neighbours who had come back a little earlier brought food. That night, he slept from evening until the following morning – his first deep sleep since leaving 3 years ago.

I have heard similar stories from others. People are coming back to damaged, empty houses but still feeling something that they could not find anywhere else in their years of displacement. Some are saying they will not leave again, even if fighting returns to the capital. They have learned, they say, that it is better to face whatever comes in your own place than to live somewhere else, however unsafe home may be.

My own family is still abroad. They are planning to return in May. I am already thinking about how they will absorb the shock of coming back – and I know it will be a huge shock. But I hope to make it a positive experience. This conflict has left many people emotionally handicapped, but they will find their way back to themselves. We believe this. We have to.

Khartoum has not yet recovered. The markets have come back faster than almost anything – traders, movement, a certain ordinary noise beginning again. But the city has years of work ahead of it, and so do we. Those of us who locked that office that Thursday, 3 years ago, thinking we would be right back – we are finally coming back. The work we return to is harder than the work we left. And so it matters even more.

Sudan still needs the world’s attention as millions remain displaced, and those returning to Khartoum are coming home to almost nothing. Islamic Relief is on the ground by providing food, cash assistance and healthcare to families across Sudan. Please support our Sudan Emergency Appeal and help us reach the people who need us most.

Haleema has worked in the nutrition ward at Hussein Mustafa Children’s Hospital in Gedaref since 2013. In the 3 years since the conflict in Sudan began, she has watched her ward become a frontline of the country’s hunger crisis.

Haleema starts every morning at Hussein Mustafa Children’s Hospital the same way: she walks the wards, checks the files, weighs the children, and makes her rounds with the doctors. By the time the morning is done, there are always new patients waiting to be seen.

“In a single day, we currently admit around 7, 8, or 10 cases,” she says. “Roughly around that number, every day.”

Before the war, the ward was still busy – malnutrition in Sudan predates April 2023, and families in Gedaref state have long had to grapple with food insecurity. The conflict, however, has certainly made the situation worse.

The families arriving now are mostly displaced, having fled the capital, Khartoum, or the central city of Wad Madani with nothing, and are now living in camps and settlements where food access is uncertain and clean water is not guaranteed.

Daily challenges

The symptoms of the children who arrive at the hospital’s stabilisation centre present in ways that are difficult to describe without clinical language, and the clinical language itself is hard to absorb.

Emaciation, oedema (swelling caused by severe protein deficiency), skin that blisters and peels, diarrhoea and vomiting that persist regardless of what medicine is prescribed.

“The most common signs we see are emaciation and swelling,” Haleema explains. “Sometimes the children also have diarrhoea and vomiting. The diarrhoea and vomiting often don’t stop. The children suffer a lot.”

The ward also treats children with kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), a serious parasitic disease that is endemic to Gedaref and is significantly worsened by malnutrition.

Treatment for severe acute malnutrition cannot be rushed. The body of a child who has been malnourished for a prolonged period cannot safely absorb nutrients in normal quantities, so starting too aggressively can overwhelm the system and cause further harm.

The first formula given, F-75, is a low-protein starter milk, carefully calibrated to stabilise children without overloading their systems. Only once a child is stable does treatment move to F-100 or RUTF, which are higher in protein and energy and designed for the rehabilitation phase. The process moves in stages and requires constant monitoring.

“We give F-75 and F-100 meals every 2 hours,” Haleema explains. “Some children get it every 3 or 4 hours. We give it to them in their beds. The children also receive their medications from the hospital pharmacy, free of charge.”

Teaching mothers is part of treating children

A significant part of Haleema’s days is spent sitting with mothers, explaining what treatment is required, demonstrating how to administer RUTF correctly, and teaching the principles of hygiene and feeding that will benefit the child after they are discharged.

“We work on health education for mothers,” Haleema says. “We show them how to give RUTF according to the child’s required portion [and] make sure they understand.”

This work is central to the child’s recovery. A child who leaves the ward and returns to a household where food is scarce and clean water is uncertain is at risk of relapse, so the knowledge a mother carries out of the ward with her is as important as the treatment her child received during their stay.

Medicine shortages and daily weighing

Medicine shortages add even more complexity to the delicate process of treating children with malnutrition.

More than 80% of hospitals in Sudan’s worst-affected areas are not fully functional. Power cuts are routine. While Haleema’s hospital is not in one of these areas, it still faces similar issues.

“We work day and night, without sleep,” Haleema says. “And we pray that God gives us the strength to continue supporting [our patients].”

Daily weigh-ins are the most reliable measure of progress when treating malnourished children.

As a child who arrived swollen and feverish, unable to keep food down, begins to stabilise, the oedema recedes, their skin heals and their weight increases. At a certain point, Haleema and the doctors make a judgment: this child is ready to leave.

What discharge means in practice is that treatment continues at home, with RUTF portions the child’s mother has been shown how to administer, follow-up appointments, and the knowledge that the ward is there if things deteriorate.

“Thankfully, many of our children recover,” Haleema says.

What Haleema hopes for amid Sudan’s war

When asked what she wishes for, Haleema does not speak about herself. She speaks about the ward.

“I hope that the nutrition department continues to be well supplied,” she says. “That the medicines, food and drinks do not run out. That all the basic needs and comforts for the children are always available, because we rely on them heavily.”

Islamic Relief has been working at Hussein Mustafa Children’s Hospital in Gedaref, providing food supplies and nutritional support for malnourished children and their mothers as part of its emergency health response. The supplies Haleema relies on – therapeutic milk, RUTF, medicines distributed free from the hospital pharmacy – depend on that support continuing.

Every day, children like Haleema’s patients are waiting for help. With your support, Islamic Relief can help ensure that children receive the supplies, medicines and therapeutic food they need for a chance at recovery.

When Sudan’s war reached the major city of Omdurman, Adam fled with his wife and 4 daughters. Three years on, Adam’s family is scattered across different cities, but they are surviving and slowly rebuilding their lives.

Adam does not linger on the moment he made the decision to leave. He describes it the way people often describe the unbearable; plainly, with very few words. He waited as long as he could for his 2 sons, who had gone to the market that morning as the fighting in Omdurman intensified, to return, but they never came back, so he gathered his wife and daughters and left.

That is what displacement so often looks like in Sudan. Not a single dramatic moment, but a series of impossible calculations made in real time, with little information and no certainty.

Holding his family together

Like the hundreds of thousands of other families who fled Omdurman and the nearby capital, Khartoum, in the early weeks of the war, Adam’s family made their way to Wad Madani, Sudan’s second-largest city.

It sits 140 kilometres south of the capital, and was the country’s most significant hub for displaced families at that time.

The people of Wad Madani received them with generosity. They were housed in a school, and for a time, life was manageable.

In December 2023, armed groups swept into Wad Madani. Up to 300,000 people fled the city within days, including Adam’s family.

At Madani bridge, as the family tried to leave the city, they were stopped at a checkpoint. Armed men attempted to separate Adam from his daughters, aged 17 and 21, but Adam refused. Another armed man intervened, telling Adam to take his daughters and go.

Finding ground to stand on

The family made their way to Altadamun School in Gedaref, where they spent the next 2 years in a school that had been converted into an emergency shelter for displaced families.

Islamic Relief provided Adam’s family with food baskets, flour, oil and essential household supplies. This made the difference between coping and not coping. “Without the support from the organisations, we would have nothing,” Adam says.

Eventually, Adam’s wife decided to take the daughters to Al-Duka, a town in eastern Gedaref near the Eritrean border, where her family is originally from.

They were given a plot of land to farm and are now in their second year of growing crops. This has given the family some stability, grounded in something more durable than emergency relief.

Adam lives separately, having to be close to his work. Due to high transport costs, he visits his family roughly every 2 weeks, and works hard to try to send them money on a monthly basis.

Forming community in displacement

What Adam has built in the camp where he now lives says something about who he is. He is deputy head of the camp committee — a body formed across 13 former school sites, representing 305 families.

He checks tents, coordinates food distribution, ensures the sick and elderly receive their share, and manages the relationship between displaced residents and the local community with deliberate care.

Adam remembers how man from a different tribe who Adam didn’t know before arriving gave him a large bag of sorghum (grains) for his family in their first few days in the camp. Later, after hearing that man had died, Adam went to offer his condolences.

“The people here honoured us from the start,” Adam says. “And we appreciate them.”

How Islamic Relief is responding in Sudan

Islamic Relief has been working in Sudan since 1984 and we are currently operational across 9 states, including Gedaref.

Since April 2023, Islamic Relief has reached more than 2 million people across Sudan with life-saving aid, including food, medical supplies, agricultural support and emergency cash transfers.

At the time of Adam’s interview in October 2025, food distributions in his camp had stopped for approximately 4 months due to protracted fighting which has caused food systems to break down.

Markets are no longer functioning, aid can’t get through and food prices are soaring. A quarter kilogram of any basic staple in the market costs around 6,000 Sudanese pounds.

Three years since the war in Sudan began, millions of Sudanese families remain displaced, separated and waiting. Adam’s is only one of them.

More than 30 million people in Sudan are in need of humanitarian assistance. They cannot wait. Please support our Sudan Emergency Appeal and help us continue reaching families like Adam’s with the life-saving aid they urgently need.

Mohamed runs the takaaya (community kitchen) in Al-Thawra, Khartoum. This multi-generational enterprise has a long history of supporting communities in need.

“What people do not know,” Mohamed says, “is that this community kitchen is not new. It was founded in 1986 during the famine. Then came the floods in 1988. Those same pots were used again. This is not something we invented for this war.”

Takaaya have existed in Sudan for centuries. Rooted in Sufi tradition and the principle of nafeer (a Sudanese concept of communal mobilisation that predates modern humanitarian frameworks), they are a lifeline.

When international agencies evacuated their operations from Khartoum in the early weeks of the war in 2023, it was the takaaya, already embedded in neighbourhoods for decades, that continued feeding people.

Coming together to support new arrivals

Mohamed and his son Banaga reopened the takaaya 1 month after the war began, when they started seeing families from the nearby city of Omdurman arriving in their neighbourhood with only the clothes on their backs.

Together with a group of neighbours, who were unemployed and had some time but little money, they decided to act. The first contribution was Mohamed’s own: 4,000 Sudanese pounds (approximately $9.50 AUD) from his pocket. Others added what they could. Together they bought 4 kilos of lentils and cooked their first meal.

“It was only 4 kilos,” Mohamed says, “but it made a difference. Three or 4 days later, we were already cooking 40 kilos. People were very supportive. There was no promotion. The promotion came naturally, from need.”

Word spreads the way it does in communities that are paying attention to each other. Someone would come with their pot, take some food, then tell their neighbour. The next day, that neighbour would come too.

Within weeks, the kitchen was feeding 1,200 families a day – reaching shelters, schools, and public service points across the whole of Al-Thawra, without a single pound of external funding in those early months.

A pot has no label

Mohamed runs the kitchen by a single rule, which he has repeated to journalists, volunteers and anyone else who asks.

“I had one principle in mind always,” he says. “A pot has no label. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from — from Al-Thawra or Al-Abasiya or anywhere else. All I see is the pot. A pot that is to be filled so a human being can eat. Can a pot be Christian, Jewish or Muslim? No. It is just a pot.”

He describes a British television reporter who came and asked whether the kitchen was started based on race, politics or religion. He gave her the same answer. The kitchen has fed Christians and Muslims, locals and displaced people, soldiers and civilians.

The question of who deserves food, Mohamed says, has never come up —because in his view, there is no question.

When resources are low, improvise

The kitchen has now run continuously for 3 years, but not without difficulty. Mohamed thinks about tomorrow every single day; what is needed, what is missing, how to cover the gap.

“Honestly, when resources are low, we improvise,” he says. “The people we usually buy from, I go to them, take what we need on credit. And I thank them, because they never fail us. Even when they joke about it, they still give.”

To create a more stable income stream for his volunteers, many of whom have no other work, Mohamed opened a small restaurant selling cow-foot stew alongside the takaaya. One-third of the profit went to the workers, one-third back to the kitchen. It built a reputation, attracted customers, and kept people fed in more ways than one.

The essence of happiness

Mohamed is asked what keeps the volunteers going through 3 years of this: the early mornings, the borrowing, the uncertainty about tomorrow. His answer is specific.

“You cannot imagine the happiness you feel when someone comes to you with their pot, and you see it on their face that you have helped them. You cannot imagine how much joy there is in this. And at the same time, you cannot imagine the pain of telling someone who has been carrying their pot since morning: we are not working today.”

He describes elderly people sitting down on the ground outside the kitchen and crying if they arrive on a day when the food has run out. It has happened. It is, he says, the reason the kitchen almost never closes.

“When you look at their faces, you feel like you would give up anything for them.

“At the end of the day, you put your head on the pillow completely at peace. That is the essence of happiness.”

How Islamic Relief is responding to community kitchens in Sudan

Across Sudan, takaaya have become one of the most significant branches of the country’s hunger response.

Islamic Relief’s 2025 Takaaya report, based on research across Sudan, found that 83% of families do not have enough food to get through the day.

These community kitchens, often the last lifeline between families and starvation, are themselves at risk of collapse from underfunding, exhaustion and supply shortages.

In a recent report, new research found that 42% of community kitchens in Sudan have shut down in the last six months due to a lack of international support, raising fears of famine spreading as the war enters its fourth year.

Islamic Relief has worked in Sudan since 1984 and is currently operational across 9 states. We are providing food and cash assistance, and supporting nutritional feeding centres, health facilities, and agricultural recovery for families across the country.

Since April 2023, Islamic Relief has reached more than 2 million people with life-saving humanitarian aid.

Mohamed’s kitchen has been running for 3 years without stopping. What it needs now is fuel, supplies, and the assurance that tomorrow there will be something to cook.

• 42% of 844 surveyed kitchens have shut down due to lack of support.
• International governments meeting at Berlin Conference must increase support for local response groups. Three years of war has created world’s biggest hunger crisis.
• Impact of Middle East war has put more lifesaving kitchens at risk.
 

New Islamic Relief research finds that 42% of community kitchens in Sudan have shut down in the last six months due to a lack of international support, raising fears of famine spreading as the war enters its fourth year.

The research surveyed 844 kitchens in six states across Sudan and found that 354 have closed due to a lack of funds and supplies. The community kitchens, known as Takaaya, are the last lifeline for millions of people affected by the war, often reaching places where international aid is blocked.

As international governments prepare to meet at the Berlin Conference, marking the third anniversary of the war, Islamic Relief is calling on them to urgently increase support to local mutual aid groups, or many more will face closure. The Conference must also agree to step up pressure for an immediate ceasefire to protect civilians from rising attacks.

The efforts of Sudan’s local volunteers and mutual aid groups have drawn global praise and awards, but this has not yet led to increased tangible support. The research follows Islamic Relief’s report in November 2025 that warned many kitchens were on the verge of collapse.

Islamic Relief Worldwide CEO, Iftikhar Shaheen, says: “The suffering in Sudan is a collective moral failure of the international community. Three years of war has created the world’s biggest hunger crisis and these locally run kitchens have saved countless lives. Their closure now is a death sentence for many vulnerable families. Heroic volunteers are doing everything they can to keep the kitchens open, but they need more support. As global governments meet in Berlin we need a clear commitment to increase aid, support local responders, and ensure an immediate ceasefire.”

Sudanese civilians continue to be attacked, starved, and forced from their homes. A rise in deadly drone strikes over the past couple of months have killed children, medics and patients as hospitals and schools have been hit. More than 21 million people in Sudan – 45% of the population – are now suffering food shortages due to mass displacement and attacks on farmland and trade routes.

Local mutual aid groups receive hardly any direct international funding. Most have relied on support from the Sudanese diaspora and community donations, but as the war goes on these funds are drying up. The war has fuelled an economic crisis in Sudan and rampant inflation has doubled the cost of providing meals.

Over the past month, the war in the Middle East has disrupted global supply routes and put further strain on Sudan’s community kitchens, with rising food shortages and a 187% increase in fuel costs in the last few weeks.

Islamic Relief’s research finds a varied picture across regions. In North Darfur, where famine is spreading, and recent UN assessments found more than half of children malnourished, 57% of surveyed kitchens have closed. In Tawila, North Darfur, where thousands of families have fled the siege and massacres in El Fasher, young volunteers report having to close their kitchens regularly in between donations. In Port Sudan, six out of seven kitchens (86%) have closed. However, in North Kordofan, almost all have managed to stay open as limited funding has been diverted here to address the worsening security and hunger crisis in the Kordofan region.

The kitchens that remain open are struggling to meet growing demand as more people seek support.

• Alaa, a community kitchen volunteer in Port Sudan, told Islamic Relief: “We had to suspend operations when our funding stopped. For six months, we had been feeding up to 4,000 people there every single day. We knew everyone. We became family with them. When we had to close that kitchen, it felt like abandoning my own family. Every day, there are new faces and new children. The responsibility grows every day because the number of people keeps increasing while the funding does not.”
• Ezaldeen, another Takaaya volunteer, said: “Before we had variety: lentils, vegetables, beans… Now it is usually just one type of food. We are feeding people, but we are not feeding them well. More than five people in this community have died from illnesses directly caused by hunger and malnutrition… five people who might still be alive if the Takaaya had been better resourced.”
• A volunteer in Khartoum says: “Six months ago, a meal cost around 3,000 Sudanese pounds (approx. $7.05 AUD). Now it costs about 7,000 (approx. $16.55 AUD)… more than double. When you are feeding hundreds of people every day, that difference is enormous.”
 

Cuts to international humanitarian aid further compound the challenges. The UN-led 2026 appeal for Sudan has received just 16% of the funding it needs. Last year’s appeal received less than 40%, a massive drop from 70% funded in 2024.

Islamic Relief has worked in Sudan since 1984 and has provided aid to over 2 million people across the country since the war broke out in April 2023, including food, water, and healthcare. The charity currently works in 11 of Sudan’s 18 states. Find out more about Islamic Relief’s work in Sudan.

Inas was 30 years old, fasting for Ramadan, and caring for her 3 young children and her elderly father when war erupted in the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, in April 2023. What happened in the hours and days that followed changed everything for her. Three years on, she is still rebuilding her life.

Three years ago, Sudan changed overnight. On the morning of 15 April 2023, in the final days of Ramadan, fighting broke out in Khartoum, engulfing a city of nearly 7 million people in violence.

In the years since, more than 12.8 million people have been displaced. Famine has been declared across multiple regions. Sudan has become the largest displacement crisis in the world. For Inas, it began with a typical Ramadan day in the Mayo neighbourhood of Khartoum.

“We couldn’t believe what was happening,” Inas says. “[Shelling] took the lives of 4 of the dearest young men in our neighbourhood. They were just starting to break their fast when [the bomb] fell on them.”

That night, Inas and her family, which includes her 80-year-old father, who struggles to walk, and 3 children, aged 6, 7 and 10, could not eat or drink. They gathered what little they could carry and left their home on foot.

The long road to safety

The family walked for 2 hours through the streets of Khartoum to reach Inas’s brother’s house in the suburb of Al-Azhari. They were in shock and had taken almost nothing with them. When they arrived, the shelling still had not stopped.

The next morning, the family were off again, walking to the bus terminal, then getting on a truck towards the central city of Soba. Then it was another truck to reach the relative safety of Gedaref. As they travelled, the family heard shots and saw families with very young children running alongside their vehicles, desperate to escape.

The family thought they had found safety in Gedaref, where Inas has family. They arrived on Eid. It was, she says, the first time since leaving home that they felt something close to peace.

But their journey was not over. Over the following months, as Sudan’s displacement crisis deepened, Inas and her family moved through a succession of temporary shelters: a youth centre, a medical school dormitory and a school building.

When the schools reopened, the families sheltering in these buildings had to move again. In December 2023, Inas arrived at Abu Alnajas camp in Gedaref, run by Islamic Relief, where she still lives today.

Medical crises

Inas speaks clearly and directly as she tells her story, but when she talks about her youngest child, her voice softens.

“He is afraid of thunder. He is afraid of the sound of cars. He runs to me to hold him, and he stays in shock for an hour. He cannot speak. The planes and the shelling left a deep mark on him.”

This is one of the least visible consequences of Sudan’s ongoing crisis; the psychological toll on children who have witnessed violence at an age where they have no framework to process it.

In camps already stretched beyond capacity, with no electricity, limited schooling and nowhere for children to simply play and enjoy their childhood, the conditions for recovery are almost impossible.

Inas is also managing her own health. She has hypertension, a condition that requires regular medication to manage. At one point, in the chaos of displacement, her supplies had run out. For 3 months, she couldn’t get the medication she needed. Clinics in the area had only basic painkillers, so she went without treatment.

Fortunately, Inas received help from Islamic Relief’s cash assistance programme via a direct transfer to her bank account. With that support, she was able to buy her hypertension medication and has continued her treatment since.

A future that requires more than relief

Inas is grateful for the support she has received, but she also highlights a need that food parcels and cash transfers alone cannot address.

What she wants is a women’s development centre. A space in the camp where displaced women can meet, learn, share ideas and support each other. A place where mothers who are raising children with no electricity, no adequate schooling and no clear end to this situation can find some form of purpose and connection.

“We are living patiently,” she says. “But patience needs something to hold onto.”

Three years after a shell fell on her street, Inas is still surviving, still caring for her father, still raising her children, still managing her health, and still asking for something more than survival.

Across Sudan, more than 30 million people – over half the population – are in need of humanitarian assistance, waiting for the world to remember them.

Islamic Relief’s response in Sudan

Islamic Relief has worked in Sudan since 1984 and is currently operational across 9 states, supporting some of the country’s most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities.

In Gedaref, Islamic Relief operates displacement camps, distributes cash assistance, supports health centres and nutritional feeding programmes. We are also supplying food and clean water to hospitals treating malnourished children.

Since the conflict began in April 2023, Islamic Relief has reached more than 2 million people across Sudan with lifesaving aid, including food, medical supplies, agricultural support and emergency cash transfers that allow families like Inas’s to meet their most pressing needs.

But the needs in Sudan are far greater than the aid being provided. Three years on, Sudan remains one of the most underfunded humanitarian crises in the world. Families are surviving, but surviving is not the same as recovering, and recovery requires far more support.

Sudan cannot wait. Three years of war have left more than 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

Support Islamic Relief’s Sudan Emergency Appeal and help us continue reaching families like Inas’s with the life-saving aid they desperately need.

Signatories: ACT Alliance, Caritas Internationalis, Islamic Relief Worldwide

15 April 2026: We mark three painful years since the outbreak of the conflict in Sudan, a conflict which has devastated Sudanese people, scattered families, destroyed livelihoods and shaken the foundations of the nation. Women and girls bear the brunt of the crisis, facing increased violence, and severely limited access to protection and essential services. We, as faith leaders and faith-based organisations responding in Sudan, urge concrete, accountable commitments through the Berlin Conference and beyond to uphold human rights and protect civilians and frontline responders.

Sudanese local actors, including women, youth and mutual aid groups, are at the forefront of the response. Communities remain resilient, with long-standing solidarity networks. Among these, faith-based actors play a vital role through their trusted presence in vulnerable and hard-to-reach areas, delivering essential services such as food, health, nutrition and WASH, alongside livelihoods, spiritual care and psychosocial support to restore dignity and agency.

Governments from around the world increasingly recognise the importance of Sudan’s local responders. Yet funding still fails to reach local actors and mutual aid groups on the frontlines, including local faith actors, who have seen their ability to provide even essential services curtailed due to aid cuts, strained diaspora funding and the collapse of the banking system.

“While many faith leaders had to flee Sudan due to the insecurity and targeting, some of us stayed so that communities don’t lose their anchor and strength to keep going,” (Religious leader in Sudan),

Urgent action is needed to bring protection to the Muslim and Christian leaders who remain in Sudan alongside protection for local responders facing intensified attacks and displacement. Strengthening Sudanese civil society and mutual aid groups is essential not only to address immediate needs, but also to lay the foundation for long-term, community-based recovery across the country.

As the conflict escalates and spreads unabated with the increasing use of drone attacks, the safety and scope of response for all actors is severely impacted. Health and education facilities have been hit, and our protection personnel report growing difficulties in accessing displacement camps due to the heightened insecurity.

The destruction and looting of humanitarian warehouses, convoys and offices has also resulted in vast losses of food and essential supplies. Starvation has been systematically used as a weapon of war in the conflict, leaving at least 6.7 million people in catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Widespread insecurity, including extreme levels of sexual violence, have made it increasingly difficult and dangerous for civilians – particularly women and girls – to search for food, water and basic services. Even where active conflict is reduced, such as Khartoum, the erosion of protection systems and the collapse of sustainable livelihoods continue to expose communities to heightened risks and prolonged hardship. But coupled with the conflict, drastic cuts by donors are diminishing longer-term gender-responsive cash for livelihoods and income generation.

We call for immediate ceasefire and peace. There is no military solution to the conflict nor to the suffering of the Sudanese population. We have three key messages to the international community as it continues high level discussions in Berlin this week:

• Keep civilians at the centre of peace and justice in Sudan. In the Berlin talks and their outcomes, we amplify the call of our faith partners for peace and justice in Sudan through civilian-led processes with women and youth at the forefront, and the involvement of trusted faith leaders. We call for a reversal of the exclusion and respect for women and their full inclusion in ceasefire initiatives, humanitarian mediation, political dialogue and all aspects of civic life.
• Increase financial support to local responders—including women, youth and faith actors. Donors must sustain both humanitarian and development funding, recognising Sudanese communities’ aspirations to build livelihoods, reduce reliance on food aid, and advance recovery and peacebuilding where possible. Amid global aid cuts and a focus on immediate relief, it is critical that fragile contexts like Sudan are not deprived of resources for early recovery and long-term resilience.
• We support the call of international NGOs responding in Sudan for united international diplomacy for an end to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure – including IDP sites, medical facilities, places of worship and humanitarian personnel – and allow rapid, safe, unhindered, and sustained humanitarian access and assistance. This must include prioritising sexual based violence protection mechanisms with support to community-based prevention and protection, including spiritual care and psychological support.

Mawahib works for Islamic Relief in Sudan. She supports many families who have been displaced, despite losing her own home in the war.

“I am one of the millions of people affected by this war in Sudan. I remember in April 2023 when the war broke out. My home was in an area very heavily affected by shelling. We stayed inside for 17 days, we were not allowed to go out.

“I stayed with my mum, she is disabled, and my husband. After 17 days, they announced a ceasefire for only five hours, so we moved to a safe place in North Khartoum, yet even there was still heavy, heavy shelling. I was displaced four times. We lost everything. My home was destroyed by the fire.

“Islamic Relief is also offering psychological support for girls and women, who are among the most vulnerable to this crisis. We are committed to work and assist people until peace comes and people can return to their homes.

“As a humanitarian worker, I know that even in the hardest times, there is still hope. I would say to other people facing hardship: be strong, keep your passion to support others, because we believe that by doing these things we will make a difference to the communities we serve.”

Three years on, millions in Sudan still need urgent support. Find out more about the crisis in Sudan or donate now to help families rebuild their lives.