In the early hours of Sunday, March 16, just as the clock edged toward 4:30 a.m., a group of volunteers with the organization Afrikana arrived at a shelter in Manhattan. The volunteers were there to serve Suhoor, the pre-dawn meal for Muslims observing the sacred month of Ramadan. The warm plates of jollof rice and chicken stew, picked up two hours earlier from an African restaurant in the Bronx, were the last meal asylum seekers at the shelter would have before they began fasting from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. Iftar, breaking the fast, happens shortly after 7 p.m. in New York City.
One by one, migrants at the shelter approached the van to collect their meal, along with a bag of toiletries. Some took theirs inside. Others stayed put, leaning against the wall of the building, eating alongside friends and chatting in Arabic, with Spanish speakers joining in as well.
This early morning food distribution was organized by Afrikana. Volunteers and staff have been leading the efforts to assist the city’s asylum seekers from African countries. There is no official known figure of how many Muslim asylum seekers are under the city’s care at the moment; however, there are an estimated 769,000 Muslims in New York City. Afrikana said their mission is to serve more than 40,000 Iftar and Suhoor meals to Muslim asylum seekers in the city’s shelters throughout Ramadan, a holy month of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community.
Since the start of Ramadan, Afrikana has been providing more than a thousand meals every day, with the goal of addressing food insecurity inside the shelters and also providing culturally familiar meals — and a sense of belonging — during this sacred time. Its efforts are possible due to a fundraising campaign started by the organization to collect funds during the sacred month and hire local African restaurants citywide to cook meals for asylum seekers in the shelters.
Adama Bah, founder of Afrikana in Harlem, said that part of the mission is to also provide culturally sensitive food to asylum seekers in the shelters, particularly those from African countries who have faced difficulties inside New York City’s shelter system. Bah explained that while Halal meals, which include foods that are free of alcohol, pork and meats prepared according to Islamic guidelines, are often associated with Middle Eastern or South Asian cuisine, many African Muslims in shelters were not receiving meals that reflected their religious, cultural and dietary needs. Senegalese, Guinean, and Mauritanian immigrants were among the top nationalities in federal immigration court cases in the state in 2024.
“This fundraiser came about because we were often excluded. And when the government doesn’t include you, or the city doesn’t include you, you turn to your community and you ask your community to help you. And that’s what happened. The community stepped up,” Bah said.
Bah, who migrated from Guinea at the age of 2, added that people who received the meals at the shelters have expressed gratitude and have said that they prayed for the organization and for those involved in the meal distribution. “If you are not spiritual, you won’t understand [what it means] when someone takes the time out of their day to pray for you in their language,” she said. She added that Venezuelans and other nationalities have also asked Afrikana for food during the night distribution.
“We’ve seen that there was a need for Halal meals. Especially because the shelters were not providing Halal meals to asylum seekers,” said Salim Drammeh, one of the people in charge of the operation, which delivered more than one thousand meals across three shelters and four mosques that day.
Drammeh, who had started an initiative to provide Halal meals last year with the Gambian Youth Organization, said that, since last year, he saw many asylum seekers seeking refuge at local mosques after their 30 and 60-day notices expired. Seeing the demand for food increase, this year Drammeh joined and is volunteering with Afrikana’s fundraiser to reach more members of their community.
More than 15,000 meals had been distributed citywide by March 15, including at the Darou Salam Islamic Community mosque in the Bronx. That day, around 7 p.m., more than 125 Muslims — many of whom are asylum seekers — gathered to break their fast., Their iftar consisted of dates and dal vada, a deep-fried lentil fritter made from chickpeas, mixed with spices and herbs.
Drammeh expects that 40,000 meals in total are needed by the end of Ramadan, which is followed by Eid-al-Fitr celebration, marking the end of a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting.
After breaking their fast, the congregation prayed the evening Maghrib prayer together, which was led by Imam Cheikh Tidiane Ndao. The imam explained that more than a thousand asylum seekers have visited the mosque in Ramadan and have used its address to receive their mail. He showed Documented a box full of envelopes, some postmarked from the DMV and other federal agencies.
“Feeding people is very important in the Islamic religion. Building the mosque is important in Islam, but feeding the people is more important because you have to eat first before you enter the mosque,” Ndao said, adding that he hopes people could support those in need.
That Sunday morning, with help from volunteers, Drammeh delivered food to three shelters located across Manhattan, The Bronx and Long Island City. Bah and other volunteers encountered them at the last stop in Manhattan, where she went and called on the asylum seekers at the shelter to get their meals.
Omer Mohamed, 26, a resident at the shelter, was guiding migrants outside to get their meal that would serve as their Suhoor before the early morning prayer, Fajr. Mohamed, who is from Sudan and arrived in New York two years ago, said Afrikana has been crucial to feeding people at the shelter. “You should come to see the line during Iftar, there are a lot of people,” he said, pointing toward the door to the garage where some people gathered to eat.
Bah said that while she is happy people have donated to the fundraiser, she said the funds could have been allocated for other vital services that are needed in the community if the City — which spends millions of dollars in food contracts — could offer culturally sensitive food. Other services she brought up included workforce training for black migrants and language access. “We’re almost three years into [the arrival of asylum seekers], and […] we’ve been asking for culturally sensitive food for so long now that we had to take matters into our own hands.”
