Aid cuts impact community kitchens and atrocity prevention
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John Ashworth
Nov 7, 2025, 4:01:00 AM (2 days ago) Nov 7
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1. Sudan's life-saving community kitchens on verge of collapse
BBC
6 November 2025
Barbara Plett Usher
A network of community kitchens in Sudan - a crucial lifeline for
millions of people caught up in the civil war - is on the verge of
collapse, a report says.
The warning from aid organisation Islamic Relief comes after a
UN-backed global hunger monitor confirmed that famine conditions were
spreading in conflict zones.
The locally run kitchens have operated in areas that are difficult for
international humanitarian groups to access, but are facing closure
due to neglect, shortages and volunteer exhaustion.
Sudan's people have been brutalised by more than two years of war
after fighting broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid
Support Forces (RSF).
It has created what the UN has called the world's largest humanitarian
crisis, with estimates that more than 24 million people are facing
acute food shortages.
Most of the kitchens "will close if nothing changes in six months,
with maybe one or two surviving in each area", one volunteer is quoted
by the Islamic Relief report as saying, external.
These local initiatives often operate alongside social networks known
as Emergency Response Rooms that have filled the gaps of collapsing
government services and limited international aid.
Everyone from teachers to engineers to young people pitch in.
Financial fragility is the most pressing issue the kitchens face. They
are now funded mainly by the Sudanese diaspora, after the USAID cuts
earlier this year.
"It was like someone cut a rope we were holding on to," one volunteer said.
"Before March, we had a small, regular stream that let us plan. We
knew we could serve at least one meal a day. Now? In the last month, I
would say there were 10 days we went to sleep not knowing if we could
cook the next day. The uncertainty, it's worse than having nothing."
There are severe operational challenges, such as the lack of safe
water and firewood.
Aid agencies say both sides obstruct deliveries with bureaucratic
delays and denials. To make matters worse, there are often market
disruptions due to blockades, insecurity and looting.
The situation is worst in the besieged cities of el-Fasher in the
western Darfur region and Kadugli in South Kordofan state. Both are
largely cut off from commercial supplies and humanitarian assistance.
The latest report of the global food security monitor, the Integrated
Food Security Phase network (IPC), confirmed famine conditions in
those cities, external and projected a risk of famine in 20 additional
areas across greater Darfur and greater Kordofan.
In el-Fasher, the kitchens were reduced to serving animal fodder by
the time the city finally fell to the RSF last week.
Food security in Sudan shows stark contrasts along conflict lines, the
IPC report says.
"Conflict still decides who eats and who does not."
In areas where violence has subsided the situation has begun to
improve, it says.
And some international aid agencies are contributing to the Emergency
Response Rooms, although they have not been able to replace the US
funding.
But even in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, and
largely under army control with ample commercial supplies, the scale
of need often exceeds available resources, leading kitchens to ration
food.
The city has been a hub for people displaced by the war, and prices are high.
"This is the hardest part of my day," a volunteer from Omdurman is
quoted as saying.
"We don't have a formal system. We feed everyone, but one time we had
to tell a mother at the end of the day that we had nothing left for
her two children and that she should come back tomorrow early. She
didn't even cry, she just looked deflated.
"I went home and I couldn't even speak to my own family that night.
The shame of having food in my stomach when that child did not, it is
a heavy feeling for me."
The Emergency Response Rooms have been hailed as a model for UN-led
reforms that emphasise shifting power and resources closer to the
people most affected by crises.
This year they were nominated for a Nobel Prize.
But after nearly three years, the volunteers find themselves
increasingly on their own, facing burnout and danger.
They have to work with whoever is in control in their area, and have
become targets when territory changes hands, because they are
sometimes seen by both sides as collaborating with the other party.
Limited communications are a real problem. Long-term internet
blackouts make it difficult to get money transferred through a mobile
bank system, and mobile phones are a prime target for looters.
"They depend on this mobile money," Shihab Mohamed Ali from Islamic
Relief Sudan based in Port Sudan told the BBC's Newsday programme.
"They are taking the money inside their mobiles and going to bring the
commodities from far areas. So, they used to cross through different
checkpoints. And sometimes they were being looted, their mobile taken.
And if the mobile is taken, that means the money is taken."
Worse, he says, "there are some reports of members of community
kitchens who were even killed".
"My biggest fear is that in six months, the community will be
completely exhausted," says a volunteer from Khartoum.
"We are all getting poorer and angrier."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgkl4nx784o
END1
2. UK rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite warning of
possible genocide
British government adopted ‘least ambitious’ option months before
RSF’s massacres in El Fasher
Mark Townsend
Fri 7 Nov 2025
Guardian
Britain rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite
intelligence warnings that the city of El Fasher would fall amid a
wave of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, according to a report
seen by the Guardian.
Government officials turned down the plans six months into the
18-month siege of El Fasher in favour of the “least ambitious” option
of four presented.
The city was captured last month by the paramilitary Rapid Support
Forces (RSF), which immediately embarked on ethnically motivated mass
killings and rapes. Thousands of the city’s residents are missing.
An internal British government paper, prepared last year, detailed
four options for increasing “the protection of civilians, including
atrocity prevention” in Sudan.
The options, evaluated by officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office (FCDO) in autumn last year, included the
introduction of an “international protection mechanism” to safeguard
civilians from crimes against humanity and sexual violence.
However, because of aid cuts, FCDO officials chose the “least
ambitious” plan to protect Sudanese civilians.
A report dated October 2025, documenting the decision, said: “Given
resource constraints, [the UK] has opted to take the least ambitious
approach to the prevention of atrocities, including CRSV
[conflicted-related sexual violence].”
Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist with the US-based human rights
organisation Paema (Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities), said:
“Atrocities are not natural disasters – they are a political choice
that are preventable if there is political will.
“The FCDO’s decision [to pursue the least ambitious option for
atrocity prevention] clearly shows the lack of priority this
government places on atrocity prevention globally, but this has
real-life consequences.
“Now the UK government is complicit in the ongoing genocide of the
people of Darfur,” she said.
The British government’s approach to Sudan is considered important for
many reasons, including its role as “penholder” for the country at the
UN security council – meaning it leads the council’s activities on the
conflict that has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Details of the options paper were cited in a review of British
assistance to Sudan between 2019 and mid-2025 by Liz Ditchburn, head
of the body that scrutinises UK aid spending.
Her report for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) said
the most ambitious atrocity-prevention plan for Sudan was not taken up
partly because of “constraints in terms of resourcing and staffing”.
It stated that an FCDO “internal options paper” outlined four broad
options but concluded that “an already overstretched country team did
not have the capacity to take on a complex new programming area”.
Instead, officials chose “the fourth – and least ambitious – option”,
which involved allocating an additional £10m funding to the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other
organisations “for various activities, including protection”.
The report also found that funding constraints compromised the UK’s
ability to offer better protection for women and girls.
Sudan’s conflict has been characterised by widespread sexual violence
against women and girls, evidenced by new testimonies from those
fleeing El Fasher.
“This [the funding cuts] has constrained the UK’s ability to support
stronger protection results within Sudan – including for women and
girls,” the report stated.
It added that a proposal to make sexual violence a priority had been
hindered by “funding constraints and limited programme management
capacity”.
‘They killed civilians in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after
fall of El Fasher
Read more
A promised programme for Sudanese women and girls would, it concluded,
be ready only “in the medium to long term (from 2026)”.
Sarah Champion, chair of the parliamentary international development
select committee, said atrocity prevention should be fundamental to
British foreign policy.
“I am deeply concerned that in the rush to save money, some essential
services are getting cut,” she said. “Prevention and early
intervention should be core to all FCDO work, but sadly they are often
seen as a ‘nice to have’.”
The Labour MP added: “In a time of a rapidly reducing aid budgets,
this is a dangerously shortsighted approach to take.”
Ditchburn’s appraisal did, however, highlight some positives for the
British government. “The UK has shown credible political leadership
and strong convening power on Sudan, but its impact has been
constrained by inconsistent political attention,” it read.
UK sources say its aid is “making a difference on the ground” with
more than £120 million awarded to Sudan and that the UK is working
with international partners to achieve peace.
They also referred to a recent UK statement at the UN Security Council
which promised that the “world will hold the RSF leadership
accountable for the crimes committed by their forces”.
The RSF denies harming civilians.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/nov/07/aid-cuts-uk-rejected-atrocity-prevention-sudan-civilians-rsf-massacres-el-fasher
END2
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile, WhatsApp and Signal)
PO Box 403 - 00206, Kiserian, Kenya
BBC
6 November 2025
Barbara Plett Usher
A network of community kitchens in Sudan - a crucial lifeline for
millions of people caught up in the civil war - is on the verge of
collapse, a report says.
The warning from aid organisation Islamic Relief comes after a
UN-backed global hunger monitor confirmed that famine conditions were
spreading in conflict zones.
The locally run kitchens have operated in areas that are difficult for
international humanitarian groups to access, but are facing closure
due to neglect, shortages and volunteer exhaustion.
Sudan's people have been brutalised by more than two years of war
after fighting broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid
Support Forces (RSF).
It has created what the UN has called the world's largest humanitarian
crisis, with estimates that more than 24 million people are facing
acute food shortages.
Most of the kitchens "will close if nothing changes in six months,
with maybe one or two surviving in each area", one volunteer is quoted
by the Islamic Relief report as saying, external.
These local initiatives often operate alongside social networks known
as Emergency Response Rooms that have filled the gaps of collapsing
government services and limited international aid.
Everyone from teachers to engineers to young people pitch in.
Financial fragility is the most pressing issue the kitchens face. They
are now funded mainly by the Sudanese diaspora, after the USAID cuts
earlier this year.
"It was like someone cut a rope we were holding on to," one volunteer said.
"Before March, we had a small, regular stream that let us plan. We
knew we could serve at least one meal a day. Now? In the last month, I
would say there were 10 days we went to sleep not knowing if we could
cook the next day. The uncertainty, it's worse than having nothing."
There are severe operational challenges, such as the lack of safe
water and firewood.
Aid agencies say both sides obstruct deliveries with bureaucratic
delays and denials. To make matters worse, there are often market
disruptions due to blockades, insecurity and looting.
The situation is worst in the besieged cities of el-Fasher in the
western Darfur region and Kadugli in South Kordofan state. Both are
largely cut off from commercial supplies and humanitarian assistance.
The latest report of the global food security monitor, the Integrated
Food Security Phase network (IPC), confirmed famine conditions in
those cities, external and projected a risk of famine in 20 additional
areas across greater Darfur and greater Kordofan.
In el-Fasher, the kitchens were reduced to serving animal fodder by
the time the city finally fell to the RSF last week.
Food security in Sudan shows stark contrasts along conflict lines, the
IPC report says.
"Conflict still decides who eats and who does not."
In areas where violence has subsided the situation has begun to
improve, it says.
And some international aid agencies are contributing to the Emergency
Response Rooms, although they have not been able to replace the US
funding.
But even in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, and
largely under army control with ample commercial supplies, the scale
of need often exceeds available resources, leading kitchens to ration
food.
The city has been a hub for people displaced by the war, and prices are high.
"This is the hardest part of my day," a volunteer from Omdurman is
quoted as saying.
"We don't have a formal system. We feed everyone, but one time we had
to tell a mother at the end of the day that we had nothing left for
her two children and that she should come back tomorrow early. She
didn't even cry, she just looked deflated.
"I went home and I couldn't even speak to my own family that night.
The shame of having food in my stomach when that child did not, it is
a heavy feeling for me."
The Emergency Response Rooms have been hailed as a model for UN-led
reforms that emphasise shifting power and resources closer to the
people most affected by crises.
This year they were nominated for a Nobel Prize.
But after nearly three years, the volunteers find themselves
increasingly on their own, facing burnout and danger.
They have to work with whoever is in control in their area, and have
become targets when territory changes hands, because they are
sometimes seen by both sides as collaborating with the other party.
Limited communications are a real problem. Long-term internet
blackouts make it difficult to get money transferred through a mobile
bank system, and mobile phones are a prime target for looters.
"They depend on this mobile money," Shihab Mohamed Ali from Islamic
Relief Sudan based in Port Sudan told the BBC's Newsday programme.
"They are taking the money inside their mobiles and going to bring the
commodities from far areas. So, they used to cross through different
checkpoints. And sometimes they were being looted, their mobile taken.
And if the mobile is taken, that means the money is taken."
Worse, he says, "there are some reports of members of community
kitchens who were even killed".
"My biggest fear is that in six months, the community will be
completely exhausted," says a volunteer from Khartoum.
"We are all getting poorer and angrier."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgkl4nx784o
END1
2. UK rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite warning of
possible genocide
British government adopted ‘least ambitious’ option months before
RSF’s massacres in El Fasher
Mark Townsend
Fri 7 Nov 2025
Guardian
Britain rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite
intelligence warnings that the city of El Fasher would fall amid a
wave of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, according to a report
seen by the Guardian.
Government officials turned down the plans six months into the
18-month siege of El Fasher in favour of the “least ambitious” option
of four presented.
The city was captured last month by the paramilitary Rapid Support
Forces (RSF), which immediately embarked on ethnically motivated mass
killings and rapes. Thousands of the city’s residents are missing.
An internal British government paper, prepared last year, detailed
four options for increasing “the protection of civilians, including
atrocity prevention” in Sudan.
The options, evaluated by officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office (FCDO) in autumn last year, included the
introduction of an “international protection mechanism” to safeguard
civilians from crimes against humanity and sexual violence.
However, because of aid cuts, FCDO officials chose the “least
ambitious” plan to protect Sudanese civilians.
A report dated October 2025, documenting the decision, said: “Given
resource constraints, [the UK] has opted to take the least ambitious
approach to the prevention of atrocities, including CRSV
[conflicted-related sexual violence].”
Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist with the US-based human rights
organisation Paema (Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities), said:
“Atrocities are not natural disasters – they are a political choice
that are preventable if there is political will.
“The FCDO’s decision [to pursue the least ambitious option for
atrocity prevention] clearly shows the lack of priority this
government places on atrocity prevention globally, but this has
real-life consequences.
“Now the UK government is complicit in the ongoing genocide of the
people of Darfur,” she said.
The British government’s approach to Sudan is considered important for
many reasons, including its role as “penholder” for the country at the
UN security council – meaning it leads the council’s activities on the
conflict that has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Details of the options paper were cited in a review of British
assistance to Sudan between 2019 and mid-2025 by Liz Ditchburn, head
of the body that scrutinises UK aid spending.
Her report for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) said
the most ambitious atrocity-prevention plan for Sudan was not taken up
partly because of “constraints in terms of resourcing and staffing”.
It stated that an FCDO “internal options paper” outlined four broad
options but concluded that “an already overstretched country team did
not have the capacity to take on a complex new programming area”.
Instead, officials chose “the fourth – and least ambitious – option”,
which involved allocating an additional £10m funding to the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other
organisations “for various activities, including protection”.
The report also found that funding constraints compromised the UK’s
ability to offer better protection for women and girls.
Sudan’s conflict has been characterised by widespread sexual violence
against women and girls, evidenced by new testimonies from those
fleeing El Fasher.
“This [the funding cuts] has constrained the UK’s ability to support
stronger protection results within Sudan – including for women and
girls,” the report stated.
It added that a proposal to make sexual violence a priority had been
hindered by “funding constraints and limited programme management
capacity”.
‘They killed civilians in their beds’: chaos and brutality reign after
fall of El Fasher
Read more
A promised programme for Sudanese women and girls would, it concluded,
be ready only “in the medium to long term (from 2026)”.
Sarah Champion, chair of the parliamentary international development
select committee, said atrocity prevention should be fundamental to
British foreign policy.
“I am deeply concerned that in the rush to save money, some essential
services are getting cut,” she said. “Prevention and early
intervention should be core to all FCDO work, but sadly they are often
seen as a ‘nice to have’.”
The Labour MP added: “In a time of a rapidly reducing aid budgets,
this is a dangerously shortsighted approach to take.”
Ditchburn’s appraisal did, however, highlight some positives for the
British government. “The UK has shown credible political leadership
and strong convening power on Sudan, but its impact has been
constrained by inconsistent political attention,” it read.
UK sources say its aid is “making a difference on the ground” with
more than £120 million awarded to Sudan and that the UK is working
with international partners to achieve peace.
They also referred to a recent UK statement at the UN Security Council
which promised that the “world will hold the RSF leadership
accountable for the crimes committed by their forces”.
The RSF denies harming civilians.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/nov/07/aid-cuts-uk-rejected-atrocity-prevention-sudan-civilians-rsf-massacres-el-fasher
END2
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile, WhatsApp and Signal)
PO Box 403 - 00206, Kiserian, Kenya
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