The situation is so dire that some residents in El-Fasher are reported to have resorted to eating animal feed or food scraps to survive. Local activists have begun reporting deaths from starvation, while prices for the scarce food available in the market have skyrocketed.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has issued a stark warning. Residents of the besieged town of El-Fasher in Sudan are facing extreme hunger and a life-threatening situation. The town, home to around 250 people, is located in the western Darfur Region and has been under siege for almost 16 months by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary forces, who are seeking to wrest control of it from the Sudanese army.
According to the WFP, the agency has not been able to deliver food aid by land to the town for more than a year. The situation is so dire that some residents are reportedly resorting to eating animal feed or food scraps to survive. Local activists have begun reporting deaths from starvation, while prices for the scarce food available in the market have skyrocketed. The agency did not directly blame any party, but noted that RSF has blocked trade routes and supply lines to the only town in Darfur still held by the army. “Every resident in al-Fasher is fighting every day to survive,” said Eric Perdison, WFP’s Regional director for East and Southern Africa.
An 8-year-old girl, Sondos, who fled the city with her family, said there was only “hunger and bombs” in el-Fasher. The WFP says it has trucks with aid ready to enter the city, but needs security guarantees. An attempt to deliver aid in June was cut short after an attack on the convoy, for which the army and RSF blamed each other.
Meanwhile, the UN is trying to broker a week-long humanitarian ceasefire in El Fasher, but it is not yet clear whether the parties will accept it. The civil war in Sudan, which broke out in April 2023, has been described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. So far, more than 150 people have lost their lives and about 12 million others have been forced to flee their homes. The conflict has also sparked accusations of genocide in the Darfur Region.