{"id":54847,"date":"2025-09-25T17:56:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=54847"},"modified":"2025-09-25T17:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:58:11","slug":"we-will-never-flee-inside-the-stranglehold-on-sudans-besieged-city-of-el-fasher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/25\/we-will-never-flee-inside-the-stranglehold-on-sudans-besieged-city-of-el-fasher\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe Will Never Flee\u201d: Inside the Stranglehold on Sudan\u2019s Besieged City of El Fasher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events \u2013 Agencies<\/strong><\/p>\n

For 500 days, 260,000 people have been trapped by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). As political progress falters, those who attempt escape are killed, while those left behind face starvation. Experts believe the city\u2019s fall is imminent\u2014that the end has already begun.<\/p>\n

It was not unreasonable for Mariam Abdel-Ghaffar to imagine her life as a grandmother unfolding differently. But on the morning of August 11, she found herself crouched in a trench, bracing for the next assault.<\/p>\n

The attack came just after dawn. She raised her battered Kalashnikov toward the onrushing pickup trucks. Rockets screamed overhead. Suicide drones\u2014each the size of a small plane\u2014hovered in the skies. Mortar shells rained down.<\/p>\n

A row of nearby mud-brick houses disappeared. Explosions crept closer. Suddenly, she was thrown to the ground, her neck wet with blood.<\/p>\n

The mother of five was pulled back from the frontline. El Fasher\u2019s ambulances had run out of fuel months earlier. Someone pressed a cloth against her neck. Bandages were gone. Medicine, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t afford to lose Mariam. She was our oldest fighter,\u201d said Fatima Ali.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the city, Sara Bakhit crouched beside artillery near the deserted airport, ordering covering fire to prevent RSF fighters from overrunning Abdel-Ghaffar\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old single mother\u2014famous for her broad, tooth-gapped smile\u2014was already a legend in El Fasher, having survived more than 150 battles. Everyone agreed: if she fell, the city would fall with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the fighting has become too dangerous,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir snipers are targeting me constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reports indicated RSF units were pushing south, deeper into the city, in a bid to capture the army\u2019s last Darfur stronghold. Women were being abducted. Others executed on the spot. \u201cWe are fighting to survive,\u201d Bakhit said. \u201cWe have no choice but to defend our families.\u201d<\/p>\n

For six hours, the battle swung back and forth. Then, abruptly, the RSF withdrew to their trenches around the city.<\/p>\n

Bakhit rejoiced\u2014but the night brought no feast. Food supplies inside El Fasher had long since run out.<\/p>\n

The city has endured siege for more than 500 days. In May 2024, the United Nations warned it was on \u201cthe brink of famine.\u201d No aid has entered since.<\/p>\n

The August battle, in which Abdel-Ghaffar was wounded, marked the RSF\u2019s 228th attempt to seize the city.<\/p>\n

El Fasher remains the pivotal front in Sudan\u2019s catastrophic war between the army and the RSF. Its fall would hand the paramilitary control of western Sudan, effectively slicing the country in two.<\/p>\n

Against all odds, the city still holds. Its defenders\u2014a mix of volunteers like Abdel-Ghaffar, rebels like Bakhit, and an exhausted infantry battalion\u2014are now hemmed into a small pocket of the shattered city, alongside 260,000 civilians, half of them children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a medieval siege\u2014something you would expect in the Middle Ages,\u201d said Sheldon Yett of UNICEF.<\/p>\n

But no aid has entered for 18 months. According to leaked documents, intelligence sources, and senior UN officials, the reason raises troubling questions about international priorities.<\/p>\n

Evidence points to a key ally of the United States and United Kingdom actively blocking life-saving aid deliveries to El Fasher.<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates intervened at a critical juncture. Since then, hundreds of children are believed to have died of hunger.<\/p>\n

U.S. State Department officials directly urged the Gulf state to back a truce and allow humanitarian access. UN relief chiefs also negotiated with Abu Dhabi\u2014but in vain.<\/p>\n

The UAE, repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, denies supporting the group.<\/p>\n

But sources monitoring the crisis say one of the longest urban sieges in modern warfare would not have been possible without its backing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UAE is the lifeline of this siege. Without its support, the RSF would have abandoned it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intelligence assessments warn the RSF is determined to carry out ethnic cleansing should El Fasher fall. Predictive models foresee massacres in the thousands.<\/p>\n

Those same assessments confirmed the RSF aimed to overrun the city during the rainy season, which began in June, when cloud cover would shield war crimes from satellite surveillance.<\/p>\n

As El Fasher\u2019s skies darkened with June storms, Abdel-Ghaffar was summoned to the city\u2019s northern front. RSF reinforcements were massing. The endgame had begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events \u2013 Agencies For 500 days, 260,000 people have been trapped by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). As political progress falters, those who attempt escape are killed, while those left behind face starvation. Experts believe the city\u2019s fall is imminent\u2014that the end has already begun. It was not unreasonable for Mariam Abdel-Ghaffar to imagine …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54848,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54847\/revisions\/54848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}