Mansour Gaily's sweets factory in Khartoum is running at 40 percent capacity. He estimates $1 million in losses — machinery gone, spare parts looted, buildings requiring reconstruction. His situation is not exceptional. According to Sudan's Ministry of Industry, approximately 1,800 industrial facilities were damaged during the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces that began in April 2023, with 650 factories completely destroyed. The scale of destruction is structural, not incidental. Abdulelah Mohamed, who owns a plastics factory and recycling operation in Khartoum, describes the looting as systematic. Sara Elfatih Khalil, CEO of Al Teital Advance Industries, ran a sesame oil factory employing 300 workers before the war. Her warehouses were looted, buildings damaged, and supply chains severed. The factory remains shut. She estimates fewer than 10 percent of factories in the sector are currently operational, and those still running operate intermittently under cost pressures that threaten viability. The damage extends well beyond physical structures. Electricity shortages, destroyed transport networks, rising import costs, and broken supply chains create compounding obstacles for any factory attempting to restart. Materials previously sourced locally must now be imported, increasing costs and fragility. Financing is absent — businesses that lost machinery, stock, and income lack the capital to replace equipment and resume operations before revenue returns. Workers bear the direct human cost. Mohamed Haj lost his job at a sweets factory in Khartoum North when the war began and has found no alternative employment. At the consumer end, shopkeeper Abdelgadir Mohamed in Bahri Central Market reports that Sudanese-made products have largely disappeared. Imports have partially filled the gap but at higher prices and with uncertain supply, compressing purchasing power further. Consumer Ahmed Mahmoud notes prices change daily — both local and imported goods are expensive. In August, the Ministry of Industry established a committee to assess industrial facilities in Khartoum State and prepare reopening incentives, including restoring electricity, water, roads, sewage, and waste management in industrial zones. Factory owners and the Sudanese Chamber of Commerce say infrastructure restoration alone is insufficient without capital access and practical support. Economist Mohamed Elnayer frames the reconstruction as a strategic choice rather than a restoration exercise. Before the war, Sudan's factories were heavily concentrated in Khartoum, creating geographic inequality and a single point of failure. When the capital became a front line, the entire industrial base was paralyzed. Elnayer argues the sector should be rebuilt across multiple states — both to distribute economic opportunity and to prevent a repeat catastrophe if conflict returns to any single city. The question facing Sudan is whether reconstruction will reproduce the fragile, centralized industrial structure that collapsed so completely, or whether the destruction creates an opening to build something more resilient. For factory owners like Gaily, the theoretical question is inseparable from the immediate practical one: securing ingredients, repairing machinery, finding workers, and keeping the lights on.
