Living conditions for Sudanese people across the country’s cities and villages have come under mounting pressure since the outbreak of the armed conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023. People continue to face sharp increases in the prices of essential commodities, accompanied by complaints about weak market oversight and the absence of measures to curb successive price hikes.
At the same time, families are facing a series of overlapping crises, including displacement and forced migration, looting of property, loss of life, disease outbreaks, and disruptions to electricity and water services, alongside rising fuel and bread prices. These pressures have been compounded by low wages, the loss of income sources for the majority of the population, widespread unemployment, and reliance on informal and precarious jobs to make ends meet. As a result, the poverty rate has risen to more than 73 percent.
The rapid depreciation of the Sudanese pound against foreign currencies—one of the worst declines in the national currency in many years—has further driven up prices and eroded purchasing power. The war has also created more complex economic challenges through the destruction of factories and major agricultural projects.
These deteriorating conditions, coupled with the continuation of the conflict and shifting control over some strategic areas, are deepening Sudan’s economic crisis and its impact on millions of Sudanese.
A Wave of Price Increases
In this context, housewife Awatif Mohamed, who lives in the Salha area south of Omdurman, said, “Most families no longer know how to make it through the day amid the unprecedented wave of price increases affecting basic commodities and consumer goods, which has exceeded their purchasing power.”
She added that “families have changed their lifestyles and reduced their daily consumption. They now make do with a single meal without meat, even when there are children and elderly people in the household, leaving them vulnerable to malnutrition. Services are also severely inadequate, particularly electricity and water, which can be cut off for days or weeks. School expenses have placed an additional burden on already extremely limited household budgets, not to mention high housing rents.”
Mohamed continued, “Housewives have begun engaging in home-based activities, such as making baked goods and traditional Sudanese women’s perfumes and selling them in markets to generate a regular income. This is intended to help their husbands, who are struggling after losing their jobs and are now earning a day-to-day living through precarious occupations that do not match their professional circumstances before the war. But we are doing everything we can simply to survive.”
She noted that “living conditions in Sudan have become unbearable because of the severe difficulties people face and the complete paralysis affecting every aspect of life, amid the absence of effective local market controls to curb rising prices.”
Improving Living Conditions
In Al-Azhari suburb south of Khartoum, teacher Saleh Al-Amin said, “My family of five needs 50,000 Sudanese pounds (about $17) to provide two modest meals, an amount that is incompatible with my monthly income. After finishing my official working hours, I have therefore taken up fishing, which was a hobby of mine before the war. It helps provide food for the family, while any surplus is sold at a market near the neighborhood.”
He added that he also rents out part of his home, considering it “the best investment under the current circumstances,” so that the family can meet its basic household needs.
Al-Amin said, “It is unfortunate that families are now living in constant anxiety over how to get through each day. At the beginning of every new day, they are surprised by further increases in the prices of consumer goods. Planning to improve living conditions has therefore become part of the daily burden.”
He continued, “For the most part, our diet now depends on vegetables and legumes. Sometimes we cook sweet potatoes with onions and gravy without adding meat, while we have given up fruit altogether. Concerns about illnesses resulting from malnutrition are increasingly growing among many residents.”
The teacher went on to say, “Living pressures continue to worsen, and most recently they have affected bread. Its cost has become higher than the average wages in the government sector.”
In his view, solutions include reviving agriculture in areas affected by the conflict, restarting factories and creating jobs, as well as regulating markets, standardizing prices, and imposing strict oversight by specialized authorities, including economic security agencies, so that traders cannot set prices arbitrarily.
Decline and Losses
While local markets are experiencing stagnation and a slowdown in buying and selling due to the rising exchange rate of the Sudanese pound against foreign currencies, many traders have temporarily closed their businesses in anticipation of further losses.
Mubarak Idris, a trader at Omdurman Market, said, “The wave of exchange-rate increases has caused a sharp decline in purchasing power, prompting some shop owners to suspend their activities until the national currency stabilizes, after reaching the worst stage of its crisis.”
Idris added, “Commercial activity in consumer-goods markets is extremely weak. As a result, traders have decided not to resume operations until the new price levels in the markets become clearer.”
The trader concluded, “In general, prices are rising across the board, while consumer activity remains limited. Further jumps in commodity prices are expected if the pound continues to depreciate and uncertainty continues to dominate the market.”
Additional Pressures
Economic researcher Abdelwahab Juma said the deterioration in living conditions comes as the Sudanese economy has been suffering since the outbreak of the April 2023 war. He said the Sudanese pound has lost more than 80 percent of its value against the US dollar, while the country relies heavily on imports to meet its needs for goods and fuel.
Juma added that reliance on the parallel foreign-exchange market in Sudan, which has become the main determinant of prices in the absence of effective oversight, means that any increase in the dollar’s value is reflected directly and rapidly in the prices of imported goods.
The economic researcher stressed that current price increases are placing additional pressure on families already suffering from low incomes and high inflation rates.
Economic Collapse
Similarly, economic analyst Kamal Karrar said the Sudanese economy has continued to contract cumulatively since the outbreak of the war, alongside successive waves of displacement. This has resulted in millions of Sudanese losing their sources of income, while agricultural, industrial, and service-sector facilities have ceased operations.
Karrar explained that declining production is the main driver of rising prices. Production of many crops has fallen, while numerous factories have been forced to shut down due to destruction, power outages, high operating costs, and difficulties obtaining raw materials. At the same time, declining agricultural and industrial exports have reduced the country’s foreign-exchange earnings, increasing pressure on the exchange rate.
Karrar continued, “Meanwhile, transportation costs have reached record levels because of heavy levies and the proliferation of checkpoints, in addition to the destruction of roads and bridges and rising fuel prices. Truck drivers have been forced to take longer and more expensive routes.”
He noted that the cost of transporting goods between states has increased by between 100 and 300 percent compared with pre-war levels. This has directly affected the prices of food, medicine, and basic commodities. The sharp decline in the value of the Sudanese pound has also deepened the crisis and increased the cost of imports, including wheat, fuel, medicines, and agricultural and industrial inputs.
He pointed out that “the continued shortage of foreign currency has increased the cost of imports, and these disruptions have consequently been passed on to consumers, worsening inflationary pressures and eroding household purchasing power.”
He added that the expansion of the parallel economy and the smuggling of gold, livestock, and strategic commodities have deprived the state of billions of dollars in revenue and foreign currency.
Karrar said that solutions to these crises must begin with ending the war and securing commercial and humanitarian corridors, because security and stability are essential conditions for the recovery of production and investment.
He stressed the need to launch emergency programs to restart agriculture and industry and finance agricultural seasons, particularly in major national projects such as the Gezira Scheme. He also called for an end to excessive road fees and charges imposed on the movement of goods between states, which would help reduce the cost of getting commodities to markets.
The economic analyst concluded by emphasizing the importance of restoring exchange-rate stability by increasing official export revenues, encouraging Sudanese abroad to send remittances through the banking system, and stopping the leakage of gold and natural resources through smuggling.
He also called for monetary and fiscal policies that limit monetary financing while directing public spending toward production and essential services, alongside expanding social-protection programs.
“Until these measures are achieved,” he concluded, “citizens will remain locked in a daily struggle with waves of price increases that consume their incomes and continue to expand the circle of poverty.”
