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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.

TOKYO: Japan’s parliament is set to elect ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country’s first female prime minister Tuesday, one day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner that would pull her governing bloc further to the right.
Takaichi will replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, ending a three-month political vacuum and wrangling since the Liberal Democratic Party’s disastrous election loss in July.
Ishiba, who lasted only one year in office, resigned with his Cabinet earlier Tuesday, paving the way for his successor.
The LDP’s off-the-cuff alliance with the Osaka-based rightwing Japan Innovation Party, or Ishin no Kai, ensures her premiership in a vote later in the day because the opposition is not united. Takaichi’s untested alliance is still short of a majority in both houses of parliament and they need to court other opposition groups to pass any legislation – a risk that could make her government unstable and short-lived.
“Political stability is essential right now,” Takaichi said at Monday’s signing ceremony with the JIP leader and Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura. “Without stability, we cannot push measures for a strong economy or diplomacy.”
The two parties signed a coalition agreement on policies underscoring Takaichi’s hawkish and nationalistic views.
Their last-minute deal Monday comes 10 days after the Liberal Democrats lost its longtime partner, the Buddhist-backed Komeito, which has a more dovish and centrist stance. The breakup threatened a change of power for the LDP, which has governed Japan almost uninterrupted for decades.
Once she is elected prime minister, Takaichi, 64, will present a Cabinet with a number of allies of LDP’s most powerful kingmaker, Taro Aso, and others who backed her in the party leadership vote.
JIP will not hold ministerial posts in Takaichi’s Cabinet until his party is confident about its partnership with the LDP, Yoshimura said.
Takaichi is running on deadline — a major policy speech later this week, talks with US President Donald Trump and regional summits. She needs to quickly tackle rising prices and compile economy-boosting measures by late December to address public frustration.
While she would be the first woman serving as Japan’s prime minister, she is in no rush to promote gender equality or diversity.
Takaichi is among Japanese politicians who have stonewalled measures for women’s advancement. Takaichi supports the imperial family’s male-only succession and opposes same-sex marriage and allowing separate surnames for married couples.
A protege of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi is expected to emulate his policies including stronger military and economy, as well as revising Japan’s pacifist constitution. With a potentially weak grip on power, it’s unknown how much Takaichi would be able to achieve.
When Komeito left the governing coalition, it cited the LDP’s lax response to slush fund scandals that led to their consecutive election defeats.
The centrist party also raised concern about Takaichi’s revisionist view of Japan’s wartime past and her regular prayers at Yasukuni Shrine despite protests from Beijing and Seoul that see the visits as lack of remorse about Japanese aggression, as well as her recent xenophobic remarks.
Takaichi has toned down her hawkish rhetorics. On Friday, Takaichi sent a religious ornament instead of going to Yasukuni.