Aid workers and activists fear that new regulations announced by the Sudan Army Support Government will lead to crackdowns on local relief volunteers, exacerbating the devastating hunger crisis affecting 25 million people across the country.
An order issued by Khartoum State on this month’s official Facebook page said all relief initiatives in the state must register with the Humanitarian Assistance Committee (HAC), the governmental body that oversees Sudan’s humanitarian activities.
HAC was granted the expanded authority that critics argued in 2006 by former leader Omar al-Bashir, according to local relief volunteers and experts.
“The HAC is trying to monitor and limit ERR jobs by enforcing us to register, and we are worried that if we continue our work but do not register, we will arrest volunteers,” said Ahmed, a local volunteer at Khartoum, referring to the emergency response room, a grassroots committee that is at the forefront of Sudan’s humanitarian response.
Khaled Abdelraheem Ahmed, HAC Commissioner in Khartoum, confirmed the new directive with Al Jazeera.
He said that registrations require you to pay around $800 in fees and submit a list of names of employees or volunteers for each relief initiative.
“[Nobody] We are permitted to carry out humanitarian activities without registering,” Abdelraheem said.
Essential Relief
The new directive is raising concerns among the ERRs. They have been committed to training, protecting and rescue civilians from attacks since the outbreak of the Civil War between Sudanese regular forces and paramilitary rapid support forces (RSF) in April 2023.
The ERR maintains a public neutrality stance to preserve humanitarian access, regardless of who controls the area in which it operates at any time.
Yet they have been attacked by both sides during the war.
Local activists, foreign aid workers and experts now suspect that HAC is registering an ERR with Khartoum to monitor their activities and profits from an already small budget and seeking to earn profits.
Kholood Khair, a Sudan expert and founder of the Confluence Advisory Think Tank, said constraints and obstacles to their work could have devastating consequences for Khartoum civilians.
“At Khartoum, it’s a meal a day for many people in many fields,” she told Al Jazeera.
“If people start to miss that one meal, if they start to miss out on that one meal [ERR] Volunteers are not showing up because they don’t feel safe enough. [show up and feed them]and then obviously, that means hunger levels pass through the roof,” Khair added.
Experts and aid workers previously told Al Jazeera they viewed the HAC as military intelligence clothing.
Al Jazeera contacted Army spokesman Nabil Abdullah to comment on the charges against the HAC.
He did not respond before publication.
HAC Head Najm Al-Din Musa previously denied allegations that the committee was involved in the diversion of aid and told Al Jazeera they were “a lie.”
The politics of aid
The HAC has long been accused of imposing bureaucratic obstacles to prevent international aid groups from reaching areas outside the Army’s control.
In many cases, aid agencies force them to apply for multiple (seemingly infinite) permits from various ministries as a way to significantly delay or block access to areas outside the Army’s control.
The practice has led experts, global relief workers and human rights groups to accuse the military of using food and aid as war weapons.
However, Hamid Kalafara, a Sudan grassroots movement expert at the University of Manchester in the UK and a doctoral candidate, believes the HAC is further politicizing aid by enforcing ERR registration.
“[The HAC] I want to control programming of [the ERRs] And make sure it matches their priorities… it’s clearly politicized and follows the de facto guidelines [army] Government,” he told Al Jazeera.
Additionally, local relief workers and experts fear that if Khartoum’s ERR members register with the HAC, their names will be handed over to intelligence reporting agencies and exposed to unnecessary harassment and arrests.
A number of “hit lists” circulated via social media shortly after the Army recaptured much of Khartoum in March, Kalafara said.
List blamed hundreds of civilians who had no resources to escape from the RSF while controlling Hartzm for working with the group.
Some ERR members’ names were on the list.
Competition and autonomy
The Army has created several of its own humanitarian committees known as “Kalama” (dignity). This told Al Jazeera without providing details to four local relief workers who have provided several services to Khartoum civilians.
Relief workers said the Kalama board was not trying to interfere with Eller’s work.
Local volunteers are still concerned that the Kalama Commission is designed to help the military build loyal constituencies through the provision of aid.
” [army] They hope that the service will pass through the appointed people. They handle the distribution of food, Medicare and more,” says Noon*, who is a local volunteer from one of the errors.
“It’s kind of propaganda,” she told Al Jazeera.
ERR volunteers are worried that if they register with HAC they will be banned from supporting the community if they return to RSF control.
This could significantly detrimentalize the trust that ERR volunteers have built with their communities since the start of the war, they said.
Others are concerned that HAC will try to limit and disrupt the work of the ERR if it registers as part of a broader ploy to make sacrifices to the Kalama Commission.
However, both experts and international aid workers said the Army is not sufficient to repair basic services in cities that have been destroyed by the RSF.
In contrast, the error is effective in acting quickly to mitigate Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe, and because volunteers do not require approval from national authorities before saving lives, Kalafara said.
“This requirement [to register] At HAC, the work they do is based on being completely independent, which is why it absolutely hurts the ERRS. [on having a model] Where accountability appears to be downwards to the beneficiaries,” he said.
The benefits of assistance?
Error is struggling to raise enough funds to support the community.
They are now worried that if they have to register for it, they will be forced to spit money into the HAC.
“We know that HAC will be cut from the budget. …This is the main issue. [with registering] Really,” Noon said.
HAC has a long history of rocking aid agencies for money. Even before the war, they forced aid groups to hire HAC staff to deliver aid and participated in job interviews.
One foreign relief worker who doesn’t want to name it said that international aid agencies that have supported the ERR since the start of the war are likely to continue quietly doing so, whether they register or not. However, sources warned that UN agencies could make concessions to the HAC.
“What the United Nations agrees to [with the HAC] It will affect everyone else and undermine everyone else’s position,” the source said.
Daniel Tengo, a spokesman for Sudan’s Humanitarian Coordination Agency (OCHA), told Al Jazeera that the UN had not decided whether to maintain or halt support for the error that does not register with the HAC.
He added that Ocha has contacted the error and is waiting for them to make a decision.
“Ocha is aware of recent communications from Khartoum HAC and has reached out to the coordination agency in the emergency response room to better understand what it means,” he said.
“The error has been confirmed to recognize [HAC’s directive] And Tengo told Al Jazeera.
Local relief workers at Khartoum explained that each error in Khartoum would be deliberated among their own members and then shared their opinions with other Err.
In the end, they will reach a unanimous decision.
“Maybe we’ll find another creative solution,” said Salma*, a local volunteer.
“We’re trying to find a way to continue working without causing more fights or problems,” she told Al Jazeera.
*The names of local aid workers have been changed due to safety concerns.
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