Port Sudan

Port Sudan is a young city with an old reason for being. For centuries the coast's trade passed through Suakin, an island town of coral-block houses south of the present city, which sent pilgrims to Jeddah and goods to Arabia but could not take modern steamers through its narrow coral channel. The Anglo-Egyptian administration chose a natural inlet to the north and built a new port there between 1905 and 1909, with a railway running inland to the Nile at Atbara. Trade shifted almost at once, and Suakin was left to fall down.

The port grew into the outlet for the whole country: cotton, sorghum, sesame, gum arabic and livestock out, manufactured goods in. Workers came from the Beja hills and from the Nile valley, and the city spread inland from the colonial grid beside the harbour. After independence in 1956 it remained Sudan's maritime lifeline, and from 1999 an oil pipeline from the fields in the south ended at a terminal here, giving the port a share of the oil economy that survived the secession of South Sudan in 2011 because the landlocked south still exported through it.

Politics have repeatedly closed the docks: eastern grievances, expressed through the Beja Congress and later through tribal councils, produced protests and blockades of the port road. When war broke out between the army and the Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, Port Sudan became the country's only functioning gateway and, in effect, its capital, housing ministries, embassies and aid agencies until the government returned to Khartoum in January 2026.

The city is Beja country. The Hadendoa and other Beja groups, who speak Beja, a Cushitic language, have lived in these hills and along this coast far longer than the port has existed, and their presence shows in the markets, in the hospitality and in the coffee ritual that accompanies almost every meeting: beans roasted in a pan, pounded with ginger or cardamom and brewed in a long-necked clay jebena. Northern Sudanese traders and administrators, Egyptians, Yemenis and Hadhramis, and more recently people from every part of Sudan, have all added to the mix, and a maritime, outward-facing feeling separates the city from the Nile valley.

Islam shapes the calendar and the day. Shops close for Friday prayers, the two Eids are the great family occasions, and Sufi orders have a following here as they do across the country. Dress is conservative, women often wear the wrapped tobe, and Beja men were long known for their thick hair and the wooden combs worn in it.

The evening belongs to the corniche. In quieter years families walked the seafront after sunset, men gathered at tea stalls, and football was played on open ground. Since 2023 the same streets have been shared with hundreds of thousands of people displaced from other parts of Sudan, and the city's hospitality has been stretched further than at any time in its history.

The 2008 census counted about 395,000 people in Port Sudan, and the city has grown a great deal since, most sharply after 2023, when it became a refuge for Sudanese fleeing Khartoum and the Gezira. Almost everything here depends on the port, which handles about 90 per cent of the country's international trade: dockers, customs agents, hauliers, shipping clerks, the fishing fleet, the grain silos and the oil terminal. Gold from the Red Sea Hills and a little industry add to it.

The rhythm of the day is set by the heat. Work and shopping happen early, the middle of the day empties the streets, and the city revives in the late afternoon. Water has always been scarce — it is piped from wells far inland — and power cuts are routine.

The war has changed the texture of ordinary life. Ministries, embassies and international agencies moved in from 2023 and largely moved out again after January 2026; camps and school buildings house displaced families; rents rose beyond the reach of many residents; and prices for food and fuel have climbed steeply. The drone attacks of May 2025 brought the war to the city directly for the first time. Hospitals here have been among the few still functioning in Sudan, serving patients from far beyond the state.

Port Sudan eats from the sea, which sets it apart from the rest of the country. Red Sea fish — grouper, snapper, emperor and mackerel — are grilled whole over charcoal or fried and eaten with bread, salad and a sharp dip of chilli, lime and cumin. Small fried fish are a street food, and prawns and shellfish appear when the catch allows.

Behind that sits standard Sudanese cooking. The day begins with ful medames, fava beans slow-cooked and dressed with oil, cumin and sometimes crumbled white cheese, scooped up with bread. Kisra, a thin fermented sorghum flatbread, and asida, a stiff sorghum or millet porridge, are eaten with mullah, a stew thickened with dried okra (waika), dried meat (sharmout) or peanut butter. Salatat dakwa, a salad dressed with peanut butter, and salata aswad, made with grilled aubergine, are common alongside. Goat and camel meat are grilled for guests and feasts.

Drinks are the country's: strong spiced coffee from the jebena, sweet tea with milk or mint, karkade made from dried hibiscus flowers and drunk hot or iced, and tamarind and guava juices. Fruit from the gardens of Kassala, a day's drive inland, reaches the market here, and dates are eaten year-round. Alcohol was prohibited under the sharia laws of 1983, and the ban was lifted for non-Muslims in 2020.