People in Port Sudan stink even more than normal, due to water shortages resulting from drone attacks. Some are very thirsty. Port Sudan is the de facto capital of Sudan during the ongoing civil war in that massive country with 50 million people. It is very hot most of the year in Port Sudan, and the city gets only about 3 inches of rain per year.
A massive increase in the price of water is just one consequence of a week of aerial attacks on the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.
Once seen as a relatively safe haven from Sudan’s devastating civil war, Port Sudan is now reeling from days of bombardment from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.
After six days of drone attacks, smoke is still rising from three fuel depots which were targeted. Rescue teams are gathered around the destroyed sites, but they are struggling to put the fires out.
The conflict, which began as a struggle between the leaders of the RSF and the army more than two years ago, has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and forced more than 12 million people from their homes.
One of those who fled to Port Sudan is 26-year-old Mutasim…he had waited hours for a water vendor to turn up.
The vital commodity has become scarce. The explosions at the fuel depots have left Port Sudan without the diesel used to power the pumps that bring up the groundwater.
Mutasim told the BBC that whereas a day’s supply of water cost him 2,000 Sudanese pounds ($3.30) a week ago, he is now being charged five times that amount.
It leaves him and the seven other members of his family without much water for cooking, cleaning and bathing.
“Soon, we won’t be able to afford it,” he said explaining that he gets money from buying and selling basic goods in the market.
People in Port Sudan need to drink a lot because the hot temperature — typically over 90 degrees in daytime — makes them sweat a lot. People used to visit Port Sudan to do scuba diving and snorkelling in the Red Sea. But not anymore. Some of the water near the city is contaminated, most of the coral is dead, and the fish are not very impressive.
The average daily high temperature there in May is 98.6 degrees, and the average daily low is 76.8. In August, the average daily high is 108.9, and the average daily low is 86.9. The average temperature for the entire year — across days and nights — is 84.9.
Last year, at least 200 people died after a dam collapsed in northeastern Sudan, eliminating the main water supply for Port Sudan. The flood waters from the dam destroyed 50,000 homes in Sudan’s Red Sea State.
By American standards, 90% of all Sudanese people would be considered black, but many also have some white ancestry, especially in the Nile region and northern Sudan. Some of them think that people further south in Africa are racially different. A Sudanese newspaper columnist with substantial Arab ancestry wrote unflatteringly about the sweat of typical sub-Saharan Africans living in countries south of Sudan: “[Sitting] beside me was a young man from Burundi returning home after a business trip to Dubai….He is like many sub-Saharan Africans who have their sweat mixed with a smell of unpleasant secretions.”
