Sudan's bread crisis deepens: most Khartoum bakeries shut, the loaf price doubles in a week and families queue at community kitchens again
Most bakeries in Khartoum have shut as wheat and fuel run short and the Sudanese pound slides, AFP reports from the capital: the price of a loaf has doubled in a week, from 250 to 500 pounds, bakers say flour can no longer be found in the market, and families are queueing again at the community kitchens that had closed when the army retook the capital in March 2025. The bread crisis sits inside a wider hunger emergency — about 20 million Sudanese face severe food insecurity, international organisations cited by AFP say — driven by a war that has split the country between the army and the RSF since April 2023.
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Key points
- Most Khartoum bakeries have shut over wheat and fuel shortages, and a loaf has doubled in a week to 500 Sudanese pounds (AFP, reporting from the capital).
- Bakers say there is no flour in the market and power cuts force them onto generator fuel; one sells below cost and expects to close, and a resident says her household's two salaries now go on bread alone (AFP).
- Families are queueing again at the community kitchens that had closed when the army retook Khartoum in March 2025; aid wheat outside the capital is blocked by fuel shortages and closed roads (AFP).
- The wider figures — about 20 million in severe food insecurity — are carried as attributed figures in a Not-yet-verified claim; the underlying UN and statistical reports were not read in this run.
What happened
Sudan's war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023 and has divided the country: the army holds Khartoum and the centre and east, the RSF the west's Darfur region and parts of the south. The army retook the capital in March 2025, and many residents have since returned — into an economy where the pound, worth 500 to the dollar when the war began, passed 10,500 this month.
Bread is the staple the crisis reaches first: Sudan imports most of its wheat, so a sliding currency and broken fuel supply turn directly into flour shortages and bakery closures. October's reporting already had Khartoum bakers raising prices and flour distributors halting sales; this week's AFP report says the position has worsened into mass closures and a doubled loaf price.
Claim by claim
Why this label: Verified as AFP's on-the-ground reporting from Khartoum (read in full in this run via republication): the closures, the 250-to-500 loaf price and the currency figures are AFP's own reporting with named residents and bakers (claims 2–3), not a single official's assertion. Al Jazeera's separate Khartoum reporting this week (read in this run) independently describes the same conditions — fuel shortages, repeated power cuts and long queues outside bakeries over flour shortages. The Arab News item that queued this story is the same AFP report and is counted as the same source, not a second one.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Verified as the named bakers' and resident's own words to AFP (read in full in this run) — direct testimony from the people closing and queueing, carried as their account of their own businesses and budgets. The dollar conversion is AFP's, stated in its report.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: From AFP's reporting (read in full in this run): the kitchens' return, the Ombada Emergency Room's warning in its own words, and the aid-delivery obstacles. The drone-attack cause of the outages is AFP's reporting of the pattern already carried on this site's live Sudan infrastructure story; it is attributed here, not re-verified in this run.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Show all claims (1 more)
Why this label: Labelled Not yet verified because these are figures AFP attributes to international organisations, UN-backed reports and the central bureau of statistics — none of those underlying reports was read directly in this run, and hunger figures are high-risk claims under this site's gates. They are published, attributed, so the scale is visible, and will be upgraded only when the underlying assessments are read. The bakery closures and prices in claims 1–3 stand on AFP's own reporting and do not depend on this claim.
On the ladder: the evidence so far sits low — early, single or social sources. We publish the claim as a claim, never as fact.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- The bakery closures, the doubled loaf price, the flour shortage and the return of the kitchen queues — from AFP's reporting from Khartoum with named bakers and residents (read in full), with Al Jazeera's Khartoum reporting in agreement on fuel, power and bakery queues.
What we don't know yet
- The exact number of bakeries closed — AFP reports “most” in the capital, with no count given in the reporting read.
- Whether the government or flour companies act on prices or supply — no official response appears in the reporting read in this run.
- The underlying hunger assessments behind the figures AFP cites (about 20 million in severe food insecurity; famine in South Kordofan and North Darfur) — not read directly in this run, so those figures stay attributed and Not yet verified.
Why it matters
Khartoum was supposed to be the war's recovery story — retaken, repopulating, its emergency kitchens stood down. Bread says otherwise: when the staple doubles in a week and most bakeries close, the emergency has returned to the capital's daily life, and the kitchens are open again. It is the clearest household-level measure yet that Sudan's economic collapse is deepening even where the fighting has moved on.
Background
Show the background timeline (4)
War breaks out between Sudan's army and the RSF; the pound stands at about 500 to the dollar.
The army retakes Khartoum and expels the RSF; community kitchens that fed the capital during the fighting stop operating as residents return.
Khartoum bakers raise prices and flour distributors halt sales as production costs climb, Sudanese media report.
The pound passes 10,500 to the dollar, the loaf price doubles in a week to 500 pounds, most capital bakeries shut and the kitchen queues return (AFP).
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
- Latest
Story published in Checking state as a brief from queue #1644. Basis: AFP's Khartoum report (read in full in this run) and Al Jazeera's Khartoum reporting. JUDGE AUDIT: headline, slug, SEO title and summary state the same facts — most capital bakeries shut, the loaf at 500 pounds after doubling in a week, the kitchens' queues back — and every number traces to AFP's report (250→500 pounds; 25% currency fall in a month; 10,500 record low; 900,000 pounds / $88 household bread spend, in the resident's own words); the high-risk hunger-scale figures are NOT stated as findings — they sit in an attributed Not-yet-verified claim because their underlying reports were not read, which the audit required; October's earlier price stage is in the background, not stacked as a claim. No official video was oEmbed-verified, so none is attached. The hero is a labelled file photo of flatbread.