Supply-Chain Disruption and Food Price Inflation in Sudan:Evidence from Five Sudanese Urban Wholesale Markets

This paper examines food-price dynamics across five Sudanese urban markets — Port Sudan, Khartoum, Gezira, Nyala, and Al Fasher — between January and May 2026, using original monthly wholesale price observations for wheat, rice, vegetable oil, and sugar alongside diesel and petrol price data. Adopting a rapid operational market analysis approach appropriate to a conflict-affected, data-constrained environment, the study identifies three structurally distinct market regimes as its central contribution. First, the integrated northern corridor (Port Sudan, Khartoum, and Gezira) displayed synchronised price trajectories consistent with a common import-cost shock transmitted through a shared distribution network: vegetable oil followed an identical monthly path across all three cities and wheat rose uniformly by + 47.4 per cent, tracking sharp diesel price increases (+ 94.1 per cent in Port Sudan). Second, Nyala — a cross-border market in South Darfur dependent on alternative wartime supply systems — exhibited a structurally elevated diesel baseline (44 per cent above northern cities from January) and commodity-differentiated inflation: wheat rose + 116.7 per cent whilst rice, already at three times the Port Sudan level, increased only + 8.3 per cent, consistent with a purchasing-power price-ceiling effect. Third, Al Fasher displayed prices indicative of supply collapse rather than inflationary transmission: wheat reached Sudanese Pound (SDG) 55,000/kg in May (19.6 times the Port Sudan price) and rice — priced at SDG 80,000/kg in April — became entirely unavailable by May. The findings demonstrate that regional market structure, diesel supply geography, and conflict intensity interact to produce fundamentally different food-price mechanisms across Sudan, with distinct policy implications for each regime.