El-Fasher: The Siege of Hunger in Sudan’s War

By Abdelnasir Salim Hamid

In the heart of Darfur, El-Fasher is living through one of the darkest moments in its history. The city is besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—not only with guns and bullets, but with something far harsher: hunger.

Daily life has turned into a slow-motion nightmare: shuttered markets, blocked roads, empty bakeries, and hospitals without medicine. It is a silent war where the cries of starving children are louder than the sound of artillery.

The siege of El-Fasher is not an incidental episode in Sudan’s war, but a calculated strategy. The RSF has deliberately cut off all supply lines into the city, destroyed warehouses, and prevented food and medicine from reaching civilians. United Nations reports have confirmed that “the situation in El-Fasher is the worst since the conflict began,” while humanitarian organizations have described it as “a systematic starvation campaign amounting to a war crime.” According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 800,000 people in El-Fasher face famine if the blockade continues unchecked.

The struggle over El-Fasher is not only military but also political and symbolic. For the Sudanese army, the city represents its last strategic stronghold in Darfur and a symbol of state presence. For the RSF, subjugating El-Fasher is proof that it is no longer a mere roaming militia but a force capable of seizing and governing a major city. Thus, the siege is part of a broader battle over Sudan’s identity and political future. At the same time, El-Fasher’s tragedy exposes the failure of Sudan’s civilian and political forces, which remain mired in infighting and unable to mount a unified stance or exert meaningful pressure to halt the catastrophe.

The regional dimension adds further complexity. Darfur, bordering Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic, is more than just a local battlefield—it is a volatile regional knot. The fall of El-Fasher through starvation would trigger new waves of refugees into neighboring states and deepen insecurity in a region already burdened by conflicts, smuggling, and the arms trade.

On the ground in El-Fasher, the crisis is laid bare in its rawest form. Mothers sell their last possessions to buy flour or lentils. Youth groups organize to protect neighborhoods from chaos. Mosques have become makeshift relief centers. Despite this striking community solidarity, people’s capacity to endure is not limitless. Every additional day under siege means more children lost to hunger, more families collapsing under economic ruin, and a society pushed closer to the brink of explosion.

Legally, the situation is unambiguous. The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit the use of starvation as a weapon of war. Additional protocols classify the deliberate deprivation of civilians from food as a war crime. Yet impunity reigns. No trials, no investigative committees, no meaningful accountability. The silence of the international system amounts to complicity in the crime.

Historically, sieges have never been purely military tools—they have been used to reshape political realities. In Sarajevo, the aim was to impose a new order on Bosnia. In Aleppo, it was to bring the city back under regime control. Today, in El-Fasher, the goal is to force a new balance of power in North Darfur, one the RSF seeks to impose regardless of the human cost.

And yet, amid the darkness, a flicker of resilience remains. Social solidarity networks continue to function. Families share what little food they have. Youth groups attempt to organize survival initiatives. This spirit shows that while the siege may exhaust bodies, it has not broken wills. Still, this resilience is fragile—and it risks collapse if the world continues to look away.

Ultimately, El-Fasher is not just another chapter in Sudan’s war. It is a double test: a test of the international community’s ability to protect civilians, and a test of the Sudanese people’s ability to withstand one of the cruelest strategies of war.

El-Fasher is no longer merely a besieged city. It has become a symbol of the Sudanese struggle against the weaponization of hunger as an inescapable fate.