By Abdelaziz Yakub
The city of Al Fashir is enduring a crushing siege and repeated drone and artillery strikes, in a humanitarian scene that grows darker by the day. The United Nations recently condemned the “deliberate and repeated targeting of civilians” in North Darfur, stressing that what is happening constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law and requires the immediate cessation of attacks.
Between October 5 and 8, a series of strikes attributed to the RSF were recorded, including an attack on the Saudi Hospital -the last major functioning medical facility in Al Fashir- which left dozens dead and wounded. Residential neighborhoods and displacement sites were also hit by additional strikes, as the United Nations continues to call for urgent measures to protect civilians and ensure safe passage for humanitarian aid.
On the evening of October 10 and the morning of October 11, drone strikes hit a site sheltering displaced people in The Daraja Oula neighborhood. The United Nations reported dozens of casualties, including women and children, in an incident that shook the besieged city and exposed the fragility of supposed safe havens.
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Denise Brown, renewed her appeal to halt the attacks and open safe corridors, warning of the catastrophic consequences for civilians amid the disruption of aid routes. She emphasized that hospitals and shelters must never be targeted under any circumstances.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed deep shock at the continued killing of civilians in and around Al Fashir, documenting dozens of deaths within just a few days, including victims in a hospital and a mosque. He called for urgent international action to prevent further atrocities.
Over the past few months, independent UN reports have documented a pattern of violations that included attacks on civilian infrastructure and key resources essential for survival. The report of the International Fact-Finding Mission concluded that civilians in Sudan — including those in Darfur — are being subjected to targeting, displacement, and starvation as methods of warfare.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed that Al Fashir has endured over 500 days of violence and isolation, with healthcare infrastructure damaged and severe shortages of fuel and medicine. The organization warned that the relentless pressure on the remaining hospital and medical staff risks the collapse of what is left of the health system.
On the ground, testimonies and humanitarian reports indicate that the city has become “uninhabitable.” In practical terms, there is extensive damage to housing and infrastructure, acute shortages of food and water, and high rates of malnutrition among children and pregnant women — while ongoing hostilities continue to obstruct the regular delivery of aid.
The United Nations and its partners are calling for independent investigations and accountability for those responsible for the violations, as well as for immediate and safe humanitarian access to Al Fashir and its surroundings. They stressed that protecting civilians and ending the violence are essential conditions to prevent the catastrophe from worsening.
As the conflict drags on and hopes for a military solution fade, Al Fashir’s plea remains the same: stop the shelling, open the corridors, and save lives — for Al Fashir is a city bleeding in silence, its quiet filled with the cries of the hungry, the wounded, and the besieged.
The Coordination Committee of the Resistance Committees in El-Fashir issued a distressing statement, saying the city “no longer has anything left to eat.” It added that all food supplies have been exhausted including the substitutes people had clung to for survival. The statement warned that the total siege, the silence of the state, and the indifference of the international community have left the city’s residents “facing a slow death.”
The statement added: “We write, yet no one hears us. We cry for help, yet no one answers. It seems we will simply watch, as the world around us does — watching our city erased while we die resisting, because we simply have nothing left but resistance and a collective death amid the world’s silence.”
In the same context, Mohyeddin Shogar, the coordinator of theAl Fashir community kitchen initiative, issued an urgent humanitarian appeal to save civilians from famine, stressing that the humanitarian situation has “reached a catastrophic stage.” He stated that the siege imposed by the RSF militia has completely depleted food and medical supplies.
Shogar warned that “time is running out and hunger will kill people before the guns,” calling on the Sudanese government and humanitarian organizations to carry out urgent airdrops of food and medicine to the city. He held anyone who obstructs the delivery of aid morally and legally responsible for the deaths of innocent people by starvation.
In a heartbreaking post from inside the city, journalist Muammar Ibrahim reported that Al Fashir has been suffering for the past two days from a “complete lack of food.” He noted that children in displacement centers are starving without a single meal to ease their hunger, and that most of them are orphans who lost their parents in the shelling or during displacement.
Ibrahim added that the scenes of hunger in the displacement centers are “beyond description,” warning that repeated condemnations do not feed the hungry. He cautioned that if the world does not act immediately, death by starvation will become a stain of shame upon everyone, calling for urgent intervention to save what remains of the lives in the besieged city.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese government is relying on the entry of humanitarian aid through UN-led arrangements, affirming that communications are underway with the United Nations and its partners to secure safe corridors to Al Fashir. However, the situation on the ground still reflects a lack of hope for any real delivery of aid amid ongoing fighting and the militias’ refusal to open the roads.
The scene in Al Fashir concludes on a bleak note: a besieged city whose people face death either by hunger or by shelling, while civilians’ pleas go unanswered and the world watch in silence .
