Though he lives not far from the Blue Nile in southern Khartoum, 43-year-old Mahmoud Abd el-Dafe’ has found himself drinking polluted water from a household well – more than once. With the war now grinding into its third year, water supplies from the river have collapsed, leaving residents like Abd el-Dafe’ parched and desperate.
In Al-Azhari, the neighbourhood where he lives, around 3,000 people have been forced to dig into the dry earth with their bare hands to reach groundwater. What they pull up is cloudy and grey, thick with salt, sediment, and at times even worms. Still, it’s all they have. The consequences are visible: stomach pain, intestinal infections, and waves of diarrhoea sweeping through families.
Clean water – once one of the Nile’s most basic gifts – is now out of reach. Heavy shelling and airstrikes have destroyed treatment plants and severed the electrical grid, cutting off safe drinking water to entire districts.
And it’s not just thirst. The war has pushed farming and fishing to a halt along the Nile. Security threats have driven farmers and fishermen from their land and riverbanks. Where they once fed others, many now go hungry themselves.
According to 2021 estimates by former Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Yasser Abbas, 20 million Sudanese live along the Blue Nile, relying on agriculture and fishing. The region includes the Gezira Project, Africa’s second-largest agricultural scheme, and dozens of farms across Sennar State in central Sudan.
When fighting spread from Khartoum into these agricultural heartlands, the country’s irrigated food system collapsed. The United Nations estimates 26 million people in Sudan are now in urgent need of assistance.
“Military clashes and airstrikes between the army and RSF destroyed electrical grids,” says Abd el-Dafe. “That stopped the pumps that draw water from the Nile. The groundwater wells in our neighbourhood broke down too. We were face-to-face with thirst, so we started digging with our bare hands.”
Some took even greater risks: braving gunfire to reach the river and hauling water back in donkey-drawn carts. One barrel can cost up to 20,000 Sudanese pounds (about USD 9) – unaffordable for most.
“My neighbours and I in Al-Azhari have been suffering for two years,” says Abd el-Dafe. “Even though the army now controls the area, I still can’t benefit from the Nile. Most of the treatment plants are still out of service.”
In neighbourhoods across southern Khartoum – including Al-Salama, Mayo, Ad Hussein, and Al-Kakla – residents have turned to unsafe groundwater after official water systems broke down. Engineers can’t reach treatment plants to repair them.
“In 2024, we documented many cases of cholera and other intestinal diseases due to drinking contaminated water,” says Fateh Hussein, a member of the South Belt Emergency Response Room.
By May 2025, cholera had surged across Sudan, particularly in the capital. The Sudanese Ministry of Health reported up to 800 new cholera cases per day in Khartoum. The Sudan Doctors Committee confirmed more than 1,000 deaths in five states, likely linked to drinking polluted water.
According to Mohamed Al-Ajab, Director General of the Khartoum State Drinking Water Authority, “The war has shut down five of the thirteen Nile-based treatment plants.” Around 1,400 groundwater wells were also damaged by shelling.
“We urgently need support to restart the Nile water plants,” says Al-Ajab. The damage, he adds, is severe and requires an emergency plan to restore or dig new wells.
In central Sudan, once the heart of the country’s agriculture, many farmers have fled the fighting. Among them is Baha al-Din Mirghani, who left his farm in the Gezira Project in December 2023 and relocated to Port Sudan.
“I left everything behind, including harvest-ready crops,” he says. “I used to be self-sufficient and sell surplus produce. Now I’m displaced, relying on minimal charity.”
He remembers better times: “The Nile was my lifeline. We grew corn, wheat, and vegetables year-round. We even got fresh fish. But the war severed that lifeline.”
Fighting has eased in some areas since January 2025, but many farms lie in ruins. Irrigation systems are broken. Equipment is gone. For now, most displaced farmers can’t return, making it unlikely that residents will be able to benefit from the Nile in the near future, according to Mirghani.
Fishing, once vital for food and income, has also ground to a halt. A 2016 African Development Bank Group report states that the Sudanese Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rangelands estimates “the total potentially harvestable inland fish catch at about 110 thousand tons, including the Red Sea fish that account for only 10 thousand tons per annum”.
Behind the Jebel Aulia Dam on the White Nile lies one of Sudan’s richest inland fishing areas, with an estimated yield of around 4,500 tons per year, according to FAO 1982 statistics. It once supplied Khartoum with fresh fish, but today that supply chain lies in ruins.
Fisherman Anwar Abdullah used to paddle across that vast reservoir in a wooden boat. Now he lives in a refugee camp in Biale, northern Kampala. “I fished for over 10 years,” he says. “But the war took the Nile from me. I’m in hell living far away from it.”
Sharaf Eldeen Youssef Adam, of Sudan’s Youth Network for Civil Monitoring, says hundreds of thousands have lost fishing jobs. That includes over 100,000 professionals from 40 cooperatives, as well as thousands of amateurs.
The damage hasn’t stopped with people – the Nile river herself is suffering.
According to Dr Abdel-Majid Mirdas, an environmental health expert and member of the Royal Society for Public Health in Sudan, the river’s ecosystems are breaking down. Behind the Jebel Aulia Dam, fish like qaramit, qarqouri, and abu qarf have multiplied, blocking dam gates and threatening operations.
As these fish decompose, oxygen levels drop. Other species die. Water quality declines. Disease spreads.
Mirdas warns that deteriorating conditions are allowing parasites and bacteria to thrive, endangering both aquatic life and public health.
Once a source of life, the Nile in Sudan has become a stagnant thread hemmed in by conflict, its waters out of reach for those who need them most. Farmers and fishermen have been uprooted, their lives reduced from production to dependence, as hunger deepens and clean water remains a distant promise. Even as they stand within sight of the river, eyes fixed on its surface, they remain thirsty – trapped between the memory of abundance and the reality of survival.
