Besieged residents of the city of El-Fasher collide with hunger, UN warns

The UN Food Agency has warned that families trapped in the siege Sudanese city of El-Fasher are hungry.

The World Food Program (WFP) has said it has not been able to deliver food to the city in the western Darfur region on the road for more than a year.

El -Fasher has been surrounded by paramilitary fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for nearly 16 months – determined to seize it from Sudan’s army.

WFP’s warning is coming as local activists have already begun to report death through starvation in the city, which is still home to about 300,000 people.

Sudan was immersed in Civil War in April 2023, after a vicious power struggle broke out between the army and his former ally, RSF – creating one of the world’s tallest humanitarian crises.

The UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF) has also issued a statement stating that malnutrition is all over the country, with many children being “reduced to the skin and bones”.

The WFP warning is a recent appeal on emergency support from Darfur northern governor al-Hafiz Bahit, who said that the life situation in El-Fasher has become unbearable.

Bahit is brought in line with the government, led by Sudan’s military leadership, which is trying to maintain control of the city, his last support in Darfur.

The Battle of RSF for seizure of El-Fasher from the Sudanese Army increased in recent monthsOnce the paramilitary is expelled from the capital, Khartoum.

UN statistics in early July show that 38% of children under the age of five in camps for internally displaced people within and near El-Fasher suffer from acute malnutrition.

WFP said the severe food shortage has drastically increased prices for scarce supply in El-Fasher and cited reports that people eat animal feed and food waste to try to survive.

The agency did not specify the responsible party – but RSF reduced the trade routes and blocked the delivery lines of the city.

“Everyone in El-Fasher faces a daily struggle for survival,” says Eric Perdison, Regional Director of WFP for East and South Africa.

“The mechanisms of dealing with people are completely exhausted from over two years of war. Without immediate and sustainable access, life will be lost,” he added.

The agency quotes an eight -year -old girl Sondos, who fled the city with five family members.

“There was a lot of firing and hunger in El-Fasher. Only hunger and bombs,” the girl said, adding that the family survived only millet.

WFP said there were trucks loaded with the help of food and eating ready to leave, and had been authorized by the Sudan government to proceed with El-Fashire.

A word from RSF is still waiting for whether it will support a pause in the fight to allow the goods in the city.

The UN has been pushing for a one-week humanitarian truce since the beginning of June, when the UN convoy on the way to El-Fasher was attacked by the army and RSF are blamed for the strike.

The Sudan State Information Agency announced that the head of the Armed Forces Gen. Abdel Fatah Al Burhan – the actual leader of the country – agreed with the temporary termination of the fire.

RSF did not officially answer. However, reports citing RSF advisers said the group had rejected the initiative, as he believed that the truce would be used to facilitate the supply of food and ammunition to the “besieged Bourhan militia” in El-Fashire.

They also claimed that RSF and its allies were creating “safe routes” for civilians to leave the city.

Last month, the International Migration Organization (IOM) said more than one million people have escaped El-Fasher since the start of the conflict, including those from the nearby Zamzam camp, which was seized by RSF in AprilS

The BBC has heard first-hand bills about their desperate flight from increased bombing over El-Fashire and band attacks combined by RSF on the road.

WFP said it has made modest progress in providing nutritional assistance to some other parts of Darfur, but said these fragile profits risk being turned when the roads are closed by the coming rainy season.

UNICEF Suden Sheldon Yet also said some conditions slowly improved in the Central Sudan regions, which recently became available to workers after the Sudanese army expelled the RSF fighters.

But he said the resources were stretched to the limit due to recent redundancies of funding, apparently referred to a drastic reduction in US President Donald Trump’s administration of international aid.

“This is a catastrophe,” he said.

“We are on the verge of irreversible damage to the whole generation of children, not because we lack the knowledge or instruments to save them, but because we are collectively unable to act with the urgency and in scale this crisis requires. We need access to these children.”