Al Fashir is being suffocated to death.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has held the capital of North Darfur hostage in a 14-month siege – blocking food or fuel from entering the locality and forcing starvation on its 900,000 inhabitants.
The entire city is currently a militarised zone as Sudan‘s army and the Darfur Joint Protection Force fend off the RSF from capturing the last state capital in the Darfur region not currently under their control.
Rare footage sent to Sky News from inside al Fashir town shows streets emptied of cars and people.
The city’s remaining residents are hiding from daytime shelling inside their homes, and volunteers move through town on donkey carts distributing the little food they can find.
‘It is truly monstrous’
Journalist Muammer Ibrahim sent Sky News voice notes from there.
“The situation is monstrous,” he says. “It is truly monstrous.
“The markets are emptied of food and partially destroyed by shelling. Civilians were killed at the market, just a day ago. People have fled market areas but there is also shelling in residential areas. Every day, you hear of 10 or 12 civilians killed in attacks.”
His voice sounds shallow, weakened by the dire conditions, and gunshots can be heard in the background.
“The intense fighting has meant that people cannot safely search for anything to eat, but there is also nothing for their money to buy. The markets are depleted. Hundreds of thousands here are threatened by a full-blown famine,” he says.
“There has been a full blockade of any nutritional supplies arriving in al Fashir since the collapse of Zamzam camp. It closed any routes for produce or supplies to enter.”
The RSF ransacked the famine-ridden Zamzam displacement camp 7.5 miles (12km) south of al Fashir town in April, after the military reclaimed Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
The United Nations believes that at least 100 people were killed in the attacks, including children and aid workers.
The majority of Zamzam’s half a million residents fled to other areas for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them are now squeezed into tents on the edges of al Fashir, completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
The capture of the camp allowed the RSF to tighten their siege and block off the last remaining supply route. Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year.
“Already, between June and October 2024, we had several trucks stuck and prevented by the Rapid Support Forces from going to their destination which was al Fashir and Zamzam,” says Mathilde Simon, project coordinator at Medicins Sans Frontieres.
“They were prevented from doing so because they were taking food to those destinations.”
“There was another UN convoy that tried to reach al Fashir in the beginning of June. It could not, and five aid workers were killed.
“Since then, no convoy has been able to reach al Fashir. There have been ongoing negotiations to bring in food but they have not been successful until now.”
Families are resorting to eating animal feed to survive.
Videos sent to Sky News by volunteers show extreme suffering and deprivation, with sickly children sitting on thin straw mats on the hard ground.
Community kitchens are their only source of survival, only able to offer small meals of sorghum porridge to hundreds of thousands of elderly men, women and children facing starvation.
The question now is whether famine has fully taken root in al Fashir after the collapse of Zamzam camp and intensified RSF siege.
‘Malnutrition rates are catastrophic’
“The lack of access has prevented us from carrying out further assessment that can help us have a better understanding of the situation, but already in December 2024 famine was confirmed by the IPC Famine Review Committee in five areas,” says Mathilde.
“It was already confirmed in August 2024 in Zamzam but had spread to other displacement camps including Abu Shouk and it was already projected in al Fashir.
“This was more than eight months ago and we know the situation has completely worsened and malnutrition rates are absolutely catastrophic.”
Treasurer of al Fashir’s Emergency Response Rooms, Mohamed al Doma, believes all signs point to a famine.
He had to walk for four hours to escape the city with his wife and two young children after living through a full year of the siege and offering support to residents as supplies and funding dwindled.
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“There is a famine of the first degree in al Fashir. All the basic necessities for life are not available,” he says.
“There is a lack of sustenance, a lack of nutrition and a lack of shelter. The fundamental conditions for human living are not living. There is nothing available in the markets – no food or work. There is no farming for subsistence. There is no aid entering al Fashir.”
“All of this points towards a full-blown famine.”
