Cairo (Agencies)
The Sudanese in Khartoum are facing a severe crisis in the cash liquidity necessary for their livelihood, with the closure of banks and the failure of many automatic teller machines, in light of the continuation of battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces for two weeks.
“In the coming weeks, people will face a real crisis,” Khaled al-Tijani, editor-in-chief of the Sudanese newspaper Elaph, said, referring to the lack of local criticism.
He continued, “People did not anticipate what happened. They were surprised by the developments and escalation.”
Battles have been taking place in the capital and many Sudanese cities since April 15 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
“Banks have been closed since April 15, which means that even those who have savings will not be able to access them,” said Kholoud Khair, founder of the “Confluence Advisory” think tank in Khartoum.
“In addition, workers in the informal sector who are paid daily have not been able to get any money” since the fighting broke out, she added.
The confrontations prompted the more than five million residents of Khartoum, whether citizens or foreigners, to either flee to other states or abroad, or to stay behind the walls of their homes, in light of the lack of food and the interruption of water, electricity, telephone services and the Internet on the other hand.
The Sudanese people’s desire to procure the necessary local cash prompted some beneficiaries to take advantage of these difficult circumstances by selling the local currency against the dollar at a high price.
Al-Tijani said, “Before the events, the price of the dollar on the black market was 610 pounds, and two days ago I exchanged the dollar for 580 pounds,” explaining that those fleeing Khartoum exchanged the US currency at a lower rate than that.
It became very difficult to escape from Khartoum under these conditions, because this requires a lot of liquidity in Sudanese currency.
Ashraf lived the experience when he decided to leave Khartoum with his family for Egypt, more than a thousand kilometers north of the Sudanese capital, and had to submit to the conditions of the bus driver.
He said, “I only had dollars with me, and he wanted Sudanese pounds, because he used them to buy fuel. In the end, he agreed to take dollars, but he stipulated that the exchange rate be 400 pounds per dollar, while the official price for the dollar is 600 pounds.”
Sudanese researcher Hamid Khalafallah explained that “fleeing from Khartoum or the country requires a lot of money in cash, which people do not have at the present time” in a country where about 65 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, according to a United Nations report issued in November. 2020.
Khalafallah indicated that when the clashes broke out, “the salaries for the month of April had not yet been paid, and we were only on the fifteenth day.”
While citizens suffer from a lack of liquidity, prices have risen, especially the fares of public buses, which have increased, according to Khair, “by 500% due to need,” noting that this is also due to “the lack of fuel and the difficulty in providing it.”
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