The fertile Jebel Marra region where food is rotting amid the conflict

There is a place in Sudan where it is almost possible to forget that a devastating civil war is going on.

In the country’s Jebel Marra mountains, women dressed in bright colors and wearing plastic sandals set out every morning with their children and donkeys in tow to tend the fields.

They grow peanuts, oranges, apples and strawberries in a Mediterranean-like climate and using fertile soil; these are rare commodities for a country currently facing one of the world’s worst hunger crises. Before the conflict, Jebel Marra’s organic oranges were particularly prized across the country for their juiciness.

The mountainous area in this part of the West Darfur region is dotted with green peaks, especially since it is the rainy season.

The rest of Sudan is on the brink of disaster.

Across the country, almost 25 million people (half the population) face severe food shortages as a result of two and a half years of war that has disrupted agriculture; More than 600,000 of them are experiencing famine, according to the UN.

But in the lush highlands of Jebel Marra, the problem isn’t growing food, it’s getting the produce.

“We sell them for almost free and sometimes throw them away on the road [to market]Because they are rotting,” said Hafez Ali, an orange seller in the town of Golo, located in the middle of the mountains in Central Darfur state.

The unsafety and poor condition of the roads make transportation almost impossible.

Jebel Marra is the last area controlled by the Sudan Liberation Army Abdulwahid (SLA-AW). This armed group remained neutral in the current war. It never signed a peace agreement with authorities in Khartoum until 2003 and the Darfur conflict at the time.

The SLA-AW has controlled what locals describe as “liberated areas” for more than two decades.

Now surrounded by war on all sides, the region is becoming increasingly isolated.

In the west and north, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militias blocked major roads. In the south, RSF positions are bombed almost weekly by the Sudanese army; These attacks also cost civilian lives.

RSF also controls areas in the east.

The result is a closed environment in which farmers and middlemen can no longer reach national markets in the cities of al-Fasher, 130 km (82 mi) away, or the cities of Tine on the Chad border, 275 km (170 mi) away.

There are other alternatives, but none have the same national coverage and all involve dangerous journeys.

Tawila, right on the border of the SLA-AW region, became the location of a temporary market. It is located on the Al-Fasher road, which hosts tens of thousands of people who were cut off due to the RSF siege and managed to escape from the city.

Due to the difficulty of moving the product further, there is an oversupply in the market and as a result, prices here have fallen.

There are some here who want to buy supplies to smuggle items into al-Fasher, an extremely dangerous and life-threatening trade.

Transporting goods this far has always been a challenge, and sometimes food can rot along the way.

“It takes a whole day to drive through the mountains and mud to cover about 12 km,” says Yousif, a fruit seller in Tawila. But now he says insecurity is making things worse.

In central Darfur, a recent ceasefire between leaders of the dominant Fur ethnic group there and Arab nomads has allowed limited trade in some areas.

Markets have reopened in the SLA-AW-controlled town of Nertiti, where Arab women sell sour milk and Fur farmers bring fruits and vegetables. But regulation is fragile.

“The market only opens once a week. Travel is still dangerous,” says a trader from Nertiti.

“Even after the agreement, armed robberies still occur on the roads.”

Fruits and crops can now also be sold at the market in RSF-controlled Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur state. But Arab militias affiliated with the RSF are frequently accused of harassing or attacking civilians in the region, although the groups deny any wrongdoing.

Every Thursday, which is Sunday, the number of checkpoints between Nertiti and Zalingei increases, sometimes reaching more than two dozen. However, since more vehicles are on the road on Sundays, more people take the opportunity to travel.

The checkpoints, some manned by RSF fighters and others by Arab militias, are policed ​​by a single gunman in civilian clothes, who sometimes demands a fee. Drivers will then often try to negotiate while passengers watch silently.

Back in the Jebel Marra area, SLA-AW checkpoints are guarding every road into the mountains and armed men are also demanding money.

Bags full of contraband goods are being searched, and even skin whitening creams commonly used elsewhere in Sudan are being seized.

Moving into SLA-AW-controlled territory, despite relative peace, there are clear signs of conflict elsewhere in the country.

Trucks full of people fleeing the conflict can be seen every day, especially around al-Fasher.

Many receive little or no humanitarian assistance in schools, clinics, and other public spaces; Aid organizations have difficulty passing through all checkpoints.

In Golo, the de facto capital of the SLA-AW region, a woman who escaped from Al-Fasher described difficult conditions. He is currently staying in a classroom with 25 other newly arrived families.

“We have no income. We have no work to do, I was working as a nurse and could farm, but the land here only belongs to the people who work for themselves. We don’t know what to do,” the woman said.

While he was talking, sick and old people were lying on the ground and children were screaming from hunger. At least the availability of food that cannot be removed from Golo will provide some relief.

This is the region of Jebel Marra, a strange world surrounded by wars. A world of green mountains and waterfalls. A world of bright, juicy fruits. A world full of frightened evacuees.

A fruit trader said he had lost hope on both warring sides.

“We are not part of the war, we just want to sell our oranges.”