Mohammed AhmedEach morning, Zeina Awad, 45, lays out sheets of kisra, the sorghum flatbread she bakes by hand, on a worn plastic mat in El-Obeid’s Hay al-Nazir market in Sudan’s Kordofan region.
A mother of four who fled the town of Ghubeish because of the ongoing conflict, Awad earns just 5,000 to 6,000 Sudanese pounds a day ($8.30 to $10), barely enough to buy a single kilogram of flour. To make ends meet, she supplements her income by trading sorghum and vegetables she grows in her backyard for other essentials her family needs.
"There’s no money, no flour, and no help,” she tells TRT World. “Just us.”
As Sudan enters the third year of its conflict, supply chains have collapsed, prices have soared to surreal heights, and a crumbling currency has turned the effort to arrange for everyday essentials such as food and soap into a daily struggle for survival.
Sudan has been wracked with a fight over territory between the country’s army and a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces. The strife led to the death of more than 150,000 people and the displacement of over 10 million. The World Food Programme has described the situation as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global initiative that analyses food security and nutrition to inform decisions, reports that over half of Sudan's population faces a food crisis. In South and North Kordofan alone, up to 755,000 people are experiencing catastrophe-level hunger, the most severe classification.
The situation is especially dire for internally displaced people and residents trapped in conflict-affected areas, where access to aid is severely restricted. The Kordofan region is one of the 14 regions at risk of famine, should violence escalate or humanitarian access deteriorate further.
The African Development Bank estimates that Sudan’s economy shrank by 37.5 per cent in 2023.
Local reports are replete with news of staggering price hikes. A 100 kg sack of sorghum now costs 240,000 Sudanese pounds (around $400), a 73 percent increase since 2022.
Cooking oil sells for 16,000 Sudanese pounds ($26.65) per pound, flour for 7,000 pounds ($11.66) per kilogram, and basic soap costs up to 5,000 pounds ($8.33) per litre.
Bartering is the only option
Awad is one of thousands of Sudanese who were left without a lifeline, and now bartering is the only thing standing between them and hunger.
Across Kordofan, in cities like Kadugli, El-Obeid, and Al-Mujlad, weekly barter markets have emerged, serving anywhere from 700 to 3,000 people each. Here, essential goods such as okra, beans, sorghum, kisra, and soap are traded without money.
These informal markets, where goods are laid out on plastic tarps on bare earth, typically spring up on the outskirts of towns. The conditions are austere, and security is tenuous.
Travel to and from these markets is often treacherous due to ongoing clashes between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, as well as severe fuel shortages and road closures.
In Kadugli’s Hajr al-Nar neighbourhood, 30-year-old Mohamed Ibrahim organises the Sitr Market every Friday, which helps about 1,500 people take home their daily necessities.
“I fled Dalang after my car was stolen in 2023. I lost my job as a driver, but felt a responsibility to help,” Ibrahim tells TRT World. “We started this market to survive the siege and starvation.”
Fuel shortages have made it nearly impossible to transport goods, and clashes can erupt without warning, Ibrahim says.
With no support from humanitarian organisations or the government, keeping the market alive has become an increasingly difficult task, he adds.
Vendors, mostly women, can be seen trading okra and beans for cooking oil and soap on the open ground. Yet the market remains under constant threat, both from violence and institutional neglect.
According to UN Women, women and girls make up 53 percent of Sudan’s 12 million people internally displaced by the civil war. The agency reports that more than two-thirds of households headed by women face food insecurity.
Ibrahim says widows and displaced mothers comprise the majority of barter market vendors. These women form the backbone of the emerging alternative economy, even as they endure harassment, social stigma, and violence with virtually no legal or physical protection.
A similar story unfolds in the nearby Tiba Market, where 25-year-old Nidal Koko, a former student at the University of Kordofan, sells bread at a local bakery to support her six-member household. She dropped out of school after the war erupted in 2023.
“I earn about 7,500 pounds a day ($12.49), but flour prices and unreliable supply make sales unstable,” she tells TRT World. “I have to barter to keep my family fed. Working around men, especially guarding the bread early in the morning, brings judgment.”
Despite the challenges, she remains determined.
“Most of us here are women. We’re exhausted. My dream is to study again, but right now, survival is the priority,” she says.
In Al-Mujlad, Mona Musa, 33, is building something out of the ruins. A graduate of Dalanj University, she fled her village in 2023 and now runs a small business making liquid soap, which she sells for 5,000 pounds each litre in the Ajib Market.
“I make between 10,000 and 20,000 pounds daily ($16-33), but the price of oil, 16,000 per pound ($26.65), forces me to trade goods to afford raw materials,” she tells TRT World.
“I face shortages, and travelling is dangerous due to the fighting. Half the vendors here are displaced like me. No help from the government or NGOs.”
Still, she persists. “The war destroyed my academic dreams, but I’m fighting to support myself and grow my business,” she says.
Not far from these women is Hajj Adam, 56, once a well-known trader in Um Duror’s weekly markets. For years, he supplied flour and sugar across the region, until his goods were looted in 2023.
“I tried bringing supplies from White Nile State through back routes,” he tells TRT World. “Even after paying taxes, the Rapid Support Forces blocked us.”
Now, he helps organise a temporary barter hub known as Souq al-Shams, or the Sun Market, a few hours each day.
“We barely have goods. Flour costs 7,000 a kilo ($11.66), sugar 10,000 ($16). Barter is the only way. But there’s no security, and clashes could destroy everything. I still dream of restarting trade, after peace comes,” he says.
A response to systemic collapse
According to economist Haitham Fathi in Khartoum, these barter networks, or what he calls “local exchange markets”, are a logical response to systemic collapse.
“When sorghum is 240,000 pounds per sack, and cooking oil is 16,000 per pound ($26.65), barter becomes a necessity, not a choice,” he tells TRT World. “But without political and security stabilisation, it’s not sustainable.”
Fathi advocates for microfinance programmes targeting women and the establishment of cooperative support structures, particularly in rural areas, to ease the economic stress. However, he cautioned that meaningful recovery remains unlikely.
Many of the women working in the barter markets live in precarious housing, exposed to theft, sexual violence, and exploitation, with no access to protective services or financial support.
In the absence of state oversight, these markets remain vulnerable to both economic and physical abuse. “For now, however, the markets are a testament to community resilience,” he says.
But for women like Awad, the burden is relentless. Life under these conditions, she says, feels “like living under a noose”.
“Incomes barely cover daily needs, and as insecurity grows, hope continues to erode,” she says.
This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
