Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Sudan’s Nobel Prize Nominated Emergency Response Rooms

Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) were nominated by Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize their critical role in providing lifesaving aid amidst one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. However, they did not receive the award.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced that they have decided to award the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organisation, Nihon Hidankyo, on 11 October 2024. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the peace prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

Sudan’s ERRs were endorsed by PRIO’s Director Henrik Urdal on his personal annual list of five candidates he personally believes are worthy of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the first time a Sudan-based organisation has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The ERRs are community-based initiatives that provide essential services to people affected by the conflict in Sudan. ERRs are not formal institutions but networks of local actors cooperating to help their communities survive. ERRs have a long tradition of mutual aid in Sudan, such as the Sudanese tradition nafeer solidarity practice. They also use some of the bureaucratic tools and language of the state and the humanitarian sector. The ERRs emerged in 2019 during the pro-democracy protests that ousted former Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, and have been active in previous crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but they have gained more visibility and recognition for their work in the ongoing war in Sudan. Since the war began in April 2023, the ERRs have reached more than four million civilians.

More than 8 million people across 14 of the 18 states of Sudan are now facing food shortages that could result in acute malnutrition and death. Some 750,000 of those are at risk of immediate starvation. According to an analysis by Save the Children, some ‘16.4 million children, or three in every four in the country, are now facing “crisis”, “emergency” or “catastrophe” levels of hunger – up from 8.3 million just last December’.

Established in 1895, the Nobel Peace Prize is an international peace prize established according to Alfred Nobel’s will. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature.

The ceremony will take place on 10 December 2024 at Oslo, Norway.

For more information, visit ERR’s Instagram account @khartoumlocalityerr