Thirst Besieges Khartoum Residents in the Fourth Year of War

As the war in Sudan enters its fourth year, citizens’ suffering continues to worsen at an unprecedented level amid prolonged electricity outages and the widespread collapse of basic services. The water crisis has become one of the harshest challenges of daily life.

Access to drinking water is no longer an ordinary matter; it has become a daily battle no less severe than the sounds of guns and shelling, draining time, effort, and money under suffocating humanitarian and economic conditions.

Since the outbreak of the war, drinking water has shifted from an accessible essential service into a heavy burden weighing on Sudanese families. Residents now spend long hours standing in extended queues to obtain barrels of water sufficient for their daily needs and to keep life possible in homes, markets, and small restaurants that have been disrupted by the lack of water supply.

In several outlying neighborhoods of the capital, Khartoum, the effects of the crisis are visible in the details of everyday life. Children and women carry containers over long distances, while donkey-drawn carts have become the primary means of transporting water to homes. Residents complain about rising prices and declining water quality, amid growing fears of diseases linked to pollution and the absence of safe alternatives, alongside increasing calls for urgent government intervention to restore essential services and ease citizens’ suffering.

Ongoing Daily Hardship

Al-Tayeb Bilal, a water cart operator, said the crisis has worsened significantly due to the continuous power outages, which have caused water stations in many areas to stop functioning.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, he explained that he sometimes spends more than ten hours waiting to obtain a barrel of water that he buys for 5,000 Sudanese pounds (about one dollar), before selling it for around 20,000 pounds (about four dollars) according to parallel market rates, in order to cover transportation costs and daily labor.

Citizen Zainab Al-Toum described the residents’ suffering as “harsh and continuous,” noting that families have been forced for more than a year to buy water daily despite deteriorating living conditions.

She explained that some of the water reaching residents is polluted or unfit for full use, yet people are compelled to use it because there are no other alternatives available.

Makkah Abdullah, a tea seller, spoke of the increasing burdens imposed on small business owners by electricity cuts. She said she is forced every day to buy two 24-gallon water containers in addition to الفحم (charcoal) and other supplies, consuming most of her limited income.

She appealed to the authorities for urgent intervention to restore electricity and water services, stressing that the continuation of the crisis has greatly intensified citizens’ suffering.

Similarly, Fatima Hassan, a restaurant owner, said the continuous rise in water and ice prices has directly affected her business. Most of her revenues, she explained, go toward covering operating costs without generating any real profit.

She added that she works under exhausting conditions to support her family while her husband suffers from illness and partial paralysis, as her five children continue their education amid growing expenses.

Mohamed Al-Nour, a butcher, believes the water crisis has become one of the most dangerous crises currently facing citizens because of its direct impact on daily life and professional activities. He called on the authorities to move urgently toward sustainable and fundamental solutions that ensure regular water access to residential neighborhoods.

Citizen Abbas Mahjoub also pointed out that around 60,000 people in East Nile and Al-Wadi Al-Akhdar areas east of Khartoum continue to suffer from severe thirst amid weak official response, with some areas relying on community initiatives to maintain groundwater wells.

Significant Increase in Consumption

For their part, officials attributed the worsening crisis to repeated power outages and unstable electricity supply feeding water stations, in addition to declining electricity production and rising consumption rates during the summer season.

The official spokesperson for the Khartoum State Government, Al-Tayeb Saad Al-Din, explained that authorities resorted to operating some water stations using diesel-powered generators to ensure continued water supply.

He noted that the Al-Manara Water Station in Omdurman alone requires around eighty barrels of diesel daily to continue operating normally.

Saad Al-Din confirmed that urgent interventions were carried out in recent days to address the water crisis in Ombada locality west of Khartoum, including drilling ten high-productivity wells to serve the areas of Ombada Al-Sabeel and Dar Al-Salam.

He expressed expectations of a gradual breakthrough in the crisis once the Al-Manara Water Station becomes fully operational.

In a country exhausted by war and weighed down by successive crises, Sudanese suffering is no longer limited to fear, displacement, and insecurity, but has extended to the very basics of life. Between long waiting lines, soaring prices, and the continuous collapse of services, citizens continue their daily struggle for survival in a scene reflecting the scale of the humanitarian deterioration gripping the country.