Babiker Mohammed no longer knows how to feed his family of six with his teacher's salary: 45 euros.

“Today I spend £27,000 on bread every month, which is 90% of my salary,” he says.

"I'm not sure I can continue to pay for school for my children."

Along with hundreds of teachers, railway workers and other Sudanese, he has joined the protesters, who now add "No to the cost of living" anti-army slogans in their parades each week.

And since November protesters have been blocking an important trade route to Egypt, denouncing in particular a rise in the price of electricity.

In addition to this, the military power has gradually reduced its subsidies on gasoline: on Wednesday, a liter cost 672 pounds (nearly 1.40 euros), against 320 before the coup.

A strategic road in northern Sudan, in Meroe, blocked by demonstrators denouncing "the high cost", February 7, 2022 - AFP

"Right decision, wrong time"

Because the state recently lost 40% of its revenue: in retaliation for the coup of October 25 by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, the World Bank suspended two billion dollars in aid and the United States, 700 million.

Worse still, Washington, which had sent 300,000 tons of wheat in 2021, will not deliver the 400,000 tons promised in 2022. And this while war rages in Ukraine after its invasion by Russia, two of the world's main producers of wheat .

Khartoum nevertheless claims to have designed a self-sufficient budget for 2022. Powder in the eyes, retort the experts.

On the point of blocking a strategic road in northern Sudan, in Meroe, February 7, 2022 - AFP

Economist Samia Sayyid told AFP that the country "returned after October 25 to the embargo" imposed in 1993 under the ousted dictator in 2019 Omar al-Bashir, whom Washington accused of supporting "terrorism".

It is a blow as terrible "as the loss of oil at the independence of South Sudan" in 2011, adds Mohammed al-Nayyir, also an economist.

At the time, Khartoum had lost 85% of its 6.8 billion euros from exports.

The currency had plunged and inflation climbed to 45% - a rate that ten years later makes you dream: in February, it reached 258%.

In an attempt to raise the bar, on March 7, the Central Bank announced that it would let the pound float, which moves freely on the foreign exchange market and is now trading at 660 pounds for one euro.

At a market in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on March 17, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

"It's the right decision but at the wrong time," said Ms. Sayyid.

It should have been taken, she pleads, in the wake of the fall of Bashir, when funds and opportunities to trade flowed in to "stimulate production" and counterbalance "inflation and devaluation".

300 employees made redundant

But today, the authorities are doing the opposite and "increasing taxes on goods, particularly agricultural ones, which weighs on the production chains".

According to Mr. Nayyir, the taxes represent "58% of the planned budget revenue".

A factory boss tells AFP – on condition of anonymity – that he had to lay off his 300 employees, in a country where one in three inhabitants depends on humanitarian aid.

In a bakery in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on March 17, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

"They were breadwinners but I couldn't continue with such expensive raw materials and electricity," he says.

And he is far from alone.

According to documents from the Sudanese Central Bank consulted by AFP, exports fell in January to 40 million euros, against 266 in December.

As for inflation, predicts Mr. Nayyir, it could "climb to 500%".

Because Sudan, whose subsoil is full of gold, has few reserves of foreign currency and ingots.

The military power has urgently appointed a commission headed by its number two, General Mohammed Hamdane Daglo, boss of the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR).

But if he never ceases to denounce "mafias" who "traffic" gold or other resources, he is content to assure that "the country has reserves" without ever giving the amount. .

At a butcher's in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on March 17, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

As for the banks -- which were to return to the international system after the lifting of American sanctions at the end of 2020 -- since the putsch, they no longer have "any link with European or American banks", told AFP the director of one of them.

The head of the UN in Khartoum has already warned: "the World Bank is giving Sudan until June" to relaunch the democratic transition.

Afterwards, it will be the end of outstretched hands.

© 2022 AFP