Sudan War Locks Depositors Out of Savings

People cross a road in Khartoum amid ongoing fighting between the forces of two rival generals, on May 18, 2023. (AFP)
People cross a road in Khartoum amid ongoing fighting between the forces of two rival generals, on May 18, 2023. (AFP)
TT
20

Sudan War Locks Depositors Out of Savings

People cross a road in Khartoum amid ongoing fighting between the forces of two rival generals, on May 18, 2023. (AFP)
People cross a road in Khartoum amid ongoing fighting between the forces of two rival generals, on May 18, 2023. (AFP)

On a scorching sidewalk, Ibrahim Said hopes to withdraw his savings from a Sudanese bank, but the wait seems as unending as the war that has brought the country's financial system to a standstill.

Said is one of dozens of depositors who have queued at a branch of the Bank of Khartoum in Madani, a city about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of the capital, to recover their savings.

"I have been here since seven in the morning hoping to withdraw money from my account," he told AFP.

One of half a million people who fled Khartoum for safer cities, Said escaped with what little cash he happened to have in the house when the capital was rocked on April 15 by air strikes and shelling that have not stopped since.

Now, he is locked out of his savings as the fighting between the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy-turned-foe Mohamed Hamdan Daglo's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shows no signs of abating.

Ishraq al-Rih has been coming to the same bank branch for three days, and on each occasion it has been the same.

"At around 3:00 pm, they open the doors, let in a very small number of people, and if you're not one of the lucky ones you have to come back the next day," she said.

Every passing day brings more anxiety, as families ration their cash to make ends meet, terrified of what footage shared online of looted banks and empty safes means for their savings.

Locked out

"We don't know what to do. We have money in the bank but we can't touch it," Ahmed Abdelaziz told AFP, standing outside the closed gate of Omdurman National Bank.

The 45-year-old civil servant thought he was safe in Madani, where tens of thousands of people have settled but cannot escape the impact of the battles that rage in the capital.

"The servers that control every bank's operations are all in Khartoum, and employees can't get to them because of the fighting," said Mohamed Abdelaziz, who works in the banking sector.

Even in states untouched by the violence, "branches have lost contact with the headquarters that used to validate operations," leaving managers unable to replenish reserves and allow withdrawals, he said.

In a move questioned by observers considering the entire sector is at a standstill, army chief Burhan declared a freeze on RSF assets this week and dismissed the central bank governor.

"Bank-to-bank payments have been completely cut; we can't transfer any money between accounts," said an employee of Sudanese French Bank who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Sudan was brought to its knees by two decades of international sanctions against former ruler Omar al-Bashir, as well as rampant corruption and the 2011 independence of South Sudan which held almost all the country's oil.

Even after Bashir was toppled in 2019 and the sanctions were lifted, the International Monetary Fund said Sudan remained on an international donors' list of "heavily indebted poor countries" and characterized its banking sector as "fragile, with several banks undercapitalized".

Emptied out safes

Sudan's fledgling banking sector -- which does not accommodate credit card payments or international transfers between individuals -- had $11.2 billion in assets at the end of 2019, according to the IMF.

It is unclear how much of that is left, however, as the country had already experienced years of economic woes, including a free-falling currency, before fighters began smashing their way into banks and emptying safes.

From the first week of the war, the army accused the RSF of breaking into a subsidiary of the central bank in Khartoum and stealing "huge sums of money".

The country's banking federation has repeatedly moved to assure clients that their assets and financial records are intact and has vowed to "restore banking services as soon as conditions permit".

Despite promises of ceasefires and the restoration of services to increasingly desperate civilians, conditions have remained unchanged for over a month.

For the time being, depositors like Said, Rih and Abdelaziz are being forced to use whatever means they have to get staples such as flour, which has doubled in price, or petrol -- now 20 times what it cost before the conflict.



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
TT
20

Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.