Sudanese start small businesses to survive war: ‘misfortune makes you creative’
- Out of work as fighting rages on, Sudanese are forced to find creative ways to support themselves and their families
- One university lecturer has turned to making soap, while others have opened stalls selling food and tea
Sudan’s war has left university lecturer Ali Seif without pay for months. To make ends meet, he has turned to making soap in his room at a makeshift displacement camp.
Out of work as fighting rages between the forces of rival generals, many Sudanese have been forced to find creative ways to support themselves and their families.
Until April 15, when the conflict erupted between the army headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Seif had worked at a Khartoum university.
Now the engineering lecturer and his family live in Wad Madani, a city where most of the nearly three million people displaced from the capital fled for safety with the few belongings they could bring.
Wad Madani has been spared the violence so far, but air strikes and fighting are taking place around 150km (95 miles) to the north.
Like many others, Seif said his house was “robbed” by paramilitaries, and that he has not received a salary since March with banks closed.
In order to survive, he has started selling soap.