El Fashir is the last city in the western Darfur region outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary that has been battling the Sudanese army since April 2023. Around 11,000 soldiers and allied fighters are now struggling to hold the city, a last refuge for more than a quarter of a million people, many of whom fled massacres and ruined villages in other parts of Darfur.
The city shudders under daily attacks: Witnesses described children in makeshift shelters being torn apart by shells. El Fashir once had 36 clinics and hospitals; only a single one remains partly operational and many doctors have been forced into hiding. The city’s water plant has been targeted repeatedly, and cholera is rampaging through a population crippled by hunger.
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Families inside the city said they have been reduced to eating leaves and animal feed. They recounted women and children being captured and sexually assaulted while foraging for wild plants.
There have been no international aid deliveries since April. In the months since, two U.N. truck convoys have been bombed while trying to break the siege. Five people were killed in the first attack. The World Food Program (WFP) says it is readying another convoy in the event of a ceasefire.
But there’s no sign of one. On Friday, the United States, along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates appealed for a three-month truce “to enable the swift entry of humanitarian aid to all parts of Sudan.” The military-led government welcomed the statement. The RSF issued no public response.
Nearly 600,000 people have already fled El Fashir and its surrounding settlements over the last 16 months, the U.N. says. Some of the sprawling camps originally set up to house people displaced by Darfur’s genocide two decades ago are now abandoned. Roads leaving the city are lined with bodies, according to families who recently escaped. Fleeing civilians are often forced at gunpoint into makeshift RSF detention centers and held for exorbitant ransoms few can afford.
The deadly vise around El Fashir can be seen from space: Satellite imagery from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab shows the RSF has constructed 31 kilometers of earthen walls encircling the city to tighten its grip.
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Sudan’s war continues to be fueled by outside actors. The military has received drones from Iran and Turkey; a State Department-funded report in October concluded with “near certainty” that 32 flights between June 2023 and May 2024 were weapons transfers from the United Arab Emirates to the RSF. The UAE has denied providing arms to the group.
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