AL-FASHIR, Sudan: In a Sudanese city long besieged by paramilitary forces, the war has taken an even more violent and terrifying turn, leaving residents facing hunger and death with little chance of escaping.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023, has launched its fiercest assault to date on El-Fasher, the only major city in the western Darfur region still in army hands.
Witnesses, volunteer groups and aid workers have reported in recent weeks intensifying RSF bombardment of El-Fasher and a nearby displacement camp, with relentless artillery fire, drone strikes and ground incursions.
The United Nations said El-Fasher, the North Darfur state capital where about 300,000 people live, has become an “epicenter of child suffering.”
Those able to escape the increasingly unlivable city have said the road out is lined with dead bodies.
Mohamed Khamis Douda, a humanitarian worker who fled to El-Fasher in April from the Zamzam displacement camp, said the city faces “famine and other disasters.”
He told AFP that disease is rampant, clean water is gone and medicine is unavailable, especially impacting the many wounded by shrapnel or gunfire.
“We’re pleading with all parties to intervene, stop the fighting and help save the lives of those still left.”
El-Fasher, which the RSF has besieged since May 2024, is effectively sealed off — no aid, no trade and hardly any way out.
Constant bombardment and restricted communications make it nearly impossible to share images of life inside the city, and residents say filming certain areas exposes them to attacks.
Rare footage obtained by AFP shows children crouched around a single pot of food in a smoke-filled communal kitchen, their faces gaunt and expressionless.
Women swirl long wooden paddles through a simmering mass of brown paste as families, silent and sunken-eyed, wait for whatever comes next.
The high-pitched shriek of incoming mortars or the crack of gunfire are ever-present as RSF fighters push to capture the city and the adjacent Abu Shouk camp, pressing a campaign that in April brought Zamzam under their control.
Famine was declared last year in Abu Shouk, Zamzam and a third camp near El-Fasher, with the United Nations warning it could spread to the city.
Most residents rely on communal kitchens to eat, but even these lifelines are vanishing as supplies dry up.
In one crowded kitchen, the traditional Sudanese dish assida is nearly unrecognizable — its usual grain base replaced with ombaz, a foul animal feed made from peanut shells that can be deadly for humans.
Last week a volunteer-run aid group said a mother, her three children and their two grandmothers had died after weeks of surviving on ombaz.
According to UN estimates, nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher are either acutely or severely malnourished.
Community leader Adam Essa told AFP last month that at least five children die daily in Abu Shouk alone.
Since losing the capital Khartoum to the army in March, the RSF has shifted west to tighten its hold on Darfur, aiming to establish a rival authority and risking Sudan’s territorial fragmentation.
The latest offensive has targeted El-Fasher’s airport, some neighborhoods and the Abu Shouk camp, which is now largely under RSF control, as is the local police headquarters.
In just 10 days last month, the UN reported at least 89 people killed in El-Fasher and Abu Shouk.
Zamzam’s capture has triggered massive displacement toward El-Fasher and further west to towns like Tawila.
Now the violence at Abu Shouk raises fears of another mass exodus.
But the only escape route from El-Fasher, a 70-kilometer (45-mile) rugged road westward, has become a graveyard, strewn with dozens of unburied bodies.
Local activists said many have died from hunger, thirst or violence.
An AFP correspondent in Tawila said many arrivals are traumatized and exhausted, often bearing gunshot wounds from attacks along the route.
Ibrahim Essa, 47, had tried to flee El-Fasher with his family in May but was forced to turn back amid clashes.
Now the family hide in a makeshift bomb shelter carved into the earth behind their home.
“If there’s shelling, we all go into the bunker,” he told AFP.
Civil servant Saleh Essa, 42, had walked for three days with his family, traveling under cover of darkness to avoid checkpoints until they finally reached Tawila.
“It is safe here, but water and food are scarce,” he said.
For some, escape is not an option.
“We have no money,” said 37-year-old Halima Hashim, a schoolteacher and mother of four.
Staying behind is like a slow death, she said, but “leaving is dangerous.”
