PORT SUDAN: In Sudan, volunteers risk death and arrest daily to serve a starving and uprooted population, vital work that made their network one of the top contenders for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Known as Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), the group tirelessly distributes food, rebuilds homes and organizes evacuations in the country ravaged by more than two years of war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions.
“We are part of the population, we come from wherever we operate,” said Dia Al-Deen Al-Malek, a volunteer coordinator with the emergency response unit in the capital Khartoum.
“We are doctors, engineers, students, unemployed people, accountants.”
The network is located in all regions of the country and brings together thousands of volunteers, mostly young people.
The teams operate outside of administrative constraints, often acting as relays for international agencies which, unable to deploy their teams on site, entrust them with the management of food and medical supplies.
“They are determined and brave people and organizations who know the context, know the language and understand what’s needed,” Denise Brown, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told AFP.

- ‘Beating heart’ -

“Since day one of the war, the Emergency Response Rooms and countless local responders have been the beating heart of the humanitarian response in Sudan,” said Shashwat Saraf, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), one of the NGOs working with the grassroots network.
Their work is to respond to emergencies, from managing hospitals to repairing water and electricity networks, running canteens, caring for the wounded, supporting victims of sexual violence and rebuilding schools.
“When the war started, there were corpses in the streets and a complete lack of action,” Malek said.
Volunteers were thrust onto the front lines to support the crumbling government when, in April 2023, the country descended into a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The ERR evolved from Sudan’s resistance committees, local networks that emerged during protests against former president Omar Al-Bashir and played a key role in the 2018-2019 revolution.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, they led prevention campaigns and vaccination efforts.
“Before joining the emergency room, many of us were already working in humanitarian projects,” said Al-Sadiq Issa, an ERR volunteer since May 2024 in Dilling, a besieged town in South Kordofan.
Issa handles documentation and monitoring activities, working with 36 volunteers divided into specialized offices: logistics, external relations, training, women’s protection and security.
“They are the only ones who can help us,” Emgahed Moussa, a 22-year-old resident of Dilling, told AFP.
“It’s thanks to them that we eat. They bring us flour, pills, sometimes just a kind word.”
According to the United Nations, more than four million people benefited from ERR’s work during the first 10 months of the conflict.
In the agricultural state of Al-Jazirah, southeast of Khartoum, where more than a million displaced people have returned since the army regained control, the ERR has mobilized safe spaces for women and children.
There too, they provide “essential medicines, first aid, as well as psychological and social support to victims of violence,” said Wafa Hassan, spokesperson for the regional emergency unit.

- ‘Biggest risk’ is arrest -

Present on the ground in the most inaccessible areas, the volunteers also document abuses by the army and paramilitaries against civilians.
Their reports are considered valuable sources in a country plagued by propaganda and disinformation.
In a general climate of fear and abuse regularly denounced by the UN, the volunteers, treated with suspicion by both sides, have been killed, raped, assaulted and arrested.
“The biggest risk in our work is being arrested, because emergency rooms are seen as an extension of the revolution,” Malek said.
Nader Mahmoud, a 25-year-old volunteer from Blue Nile state in southeastern Sudan, was arrested in early October, according to his colleagues, who have had no news since.
Moussa’s brother, a volunteer in Dilling, “was arrested while transporting diapers.”
“When he returned, he continued anyway,” the young woman said.
In September, the work of the ERR was recognized with the Rafto Prize for human rights.