EL-FASHER, Sudan — The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has issued a stark warning that hundreds of thousands of civilians in El-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, are facing extreme hunger and possible starvation as the city remains under siege.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary group locked in conflict with the Sudanese army, have been trying to capture El-Fasher since May 2024. It is the last major city in North Darfur still held by the Sudanese government, and its fall would mark a significant strategic and humanitarian blow.
According to UN estimates, approximately 300,000 people are trapped inside the city, cut off from sustained humanitarian aid as fighting escalates and supply lines collapse.
Conditions inside El-Fasher are deteriorating rapidly. “Families are surviving on scraps. Markets have collapsed, and food reserves are nearly gone,” a WFP spokesperson said Tuesday, describing the situation as “catastrophic.”
The siege has also crippled medical services and forced hospitals to operate without electricity, clean water, or sufficient supplies. Satellite images and eyewitness accounts point to heavy shelling in civilian areas, with widespread displacement and growing reports of malnutrition.
The WFP called for immediate humanitarian access and urged all parties to the conflict to allow food and medical aid to reach the city. Aid agencies have warned that without urgent intervention, El-Fasher could soon become the site of one of the world’s worst hunger crises.
Sudan has been in turmoil since April 2023, when a brutal power struggle between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces erupted, triggering widespread violence, ethnic killings, and the collapse of governance in many areas. The conflict has displaced more than 10 million people and left large parts of the country teetering on the edge of famine.
International mediators have so far failed to negotiate lasting ceasefires, and El-Fasher’s plight is quickly becoming a symbol of the broader humanitarian catastrophe engulfing Sudan.
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