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TEHRAN, May 10 - Women queue for hours under scorching sun in the hope of withdrawing cash from an ATM in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The hunt for cash has become a national sport in Sudan, where a deep economic crisis helped sparked months of protests against veteran president Omar al-Bashir.
Bashir's departure last month has done little to rescue the economy.
"I've been waiting on average two hours a day for the last eight days (to withdraw cash)," said Halima Souleiman as she waited in an ever-lengthening queue of women on a Khartoum street.
"Each time, the money in the machine has run out."
Rumours had spread that an armoured van had arrived to load the machine with cash, sparking a rush of customers.
"Today I'm hoping it will work," said Halima, an unemployed biology graduate.
When she finally made it to the small cabin containing the ATM, she emerged smiling and brandishing a wad of banknotes.
Our iftar, the meal that ends the daytime fast observed by Mulims during Ramadan, "will be bigger tonight", she said.
But with withdrawals limited to 2,000 Sudanese pounds (around $40, 36 euros) a day, the chronic cash shortage tops the list of Sudan's economic woes.
It has been accompanied by persistent power cuts, fuel shortages and spiralling inflation.
Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world -- the United Nations last year ranked it 167th out of 189 on its Human Development Index.
The economic crisis far predates the protests against Bashir that broke out in December.
It was exacerbated by widespread corruption and huge spending on a military response to multiple regional rebellions under Bashir's repressive rule.
In 2011, South Sudan won its independence, taking with it three quarters of the country's oil receipts and dealing a heavy blow to public coffers.
Sudan has also endured two decades of US sanctions over human rights violations and alleged support for "terrorist" groups.
The sanctions were lifted in 2017, but the country remains on the State Department's blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.
The potential penalties have kept foreign investors away.
Source: AFP
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