destitute by Sudan's civil war, the BBC has learned. Aid volunteers said the impact of President Donald Trump's executive order halting contributions from the US government's development organisation (USAID) for 90 days meant more than 1,100 communal kitchens had shut.

It is estimated that nearly two million people struggling to survive have been affected. The conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions from their homes and left many facing famine since it erupted in April 2023. The kitchens are run by groups known as emergency response rooms, a grassroots network of activists who stayed on the frontlines to respond to the crises in their neighbourhoods.

"People are knocking on the volunteers' doors," says Duaa Tariq, one of the emergency room organizers. "People are screaming from hunger in the streets." The Trump administration abruptly suspended all US aid last month to determine whether it was "serving US interests", and moved to begin dismantling USAID. The State Department has issued an exemption for emergency food assistance, but Sudanese groups and others say there is significant confusion and uncertainty about what that means in practice.

The normal channels for processing a waiver through USAID no longer exist, and it is not clear if cash assistance – on which the communal kitchens depend – will be restored, or only goods in-kind. According to some estimates, USAID provided 70-80% of the total funding to these flexible cash programmes.