Zeynep ConkarIn Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region, the city of Al-Fashir stands as the last government-held stronghold in North Darfur and the epicentre of a deepening humanitarian catastrophe.
After more than a year under siege by the RSF, the city’s 740,000 residents are running out of time, food, and options.
The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has been unable to deliver food to Al-Fashir for over a year, as RSF fighters have besieged the city for nearly 16 months.
Everyone in Al-Fashir, without exception, is hungry, according to Leni Kinzli, Head of Communications and Spokesperson for WFP Sudan.
What began in April 2023 as a civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has since transformed into a campaign of mass destruction across Darfur.
In April this year, RSF fighters encircled Al-Fashir, tightening their blockade after local armed groups declared support for the SAF.
The result has been devastating: a complete collapse of food systems inside the city, where residents now survive on animal feed and whatever remains in the market. With all roads blocked, humanitarian agencies have been unable to deliver life-saving food and supplies.
“We have warned that families trapped in El Fasher face starvation. Families are resorting to extreme measures like eating animal fodder and food waste to survive,” Kinzli tells TRT World.
The WFP, one of the key agencies providing aid to the region, has not been able to send food assistance by road in over a year.
“WFP continues to provide digital cash support to 250,000 people in the city, with which they can purchase whatever food they can still find in the markets, but this falls far short of the massive needs in the besieged city,” he adds.
The WFP Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Eric Perdison, shares the concern.
“Everyone is facing a daily struggle to survive,” Perdison says.
The cost of essential items like wheat has surged to nearly 460 percent above national averages. With food now unaffordable or simply unavailable, residents are resorting to desperate means, consuming animal feed, scraping together scraps, or going days without eating.
“People’s coping mechanisms have been completely exhausted by over two years of war. Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost,” Perdison adds.
Local activists have started reporting deaths from starvation in the city.
‘Only hunger and bombs’
Famine has been particularly devastating for Al-Fashir’s most vulnerable, the children.
In the first half of 2025 alone, at least 239 children have died from hunger-related causes, according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Network. Aid groups warn this figure is likely to climb if access to the city remains denied.
Children like eight-year-old Sondos have been forced to flee in search of food. “In Al-Fashir there was a lot of shelling and hunger. Only hunger and bombs. That’s why we left,” she told WFP.
Famine, the highest level of food insecurity, occurs when extreme hunger leads to widespread death, severe shortages, and acute child malnutrition monitored by Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC).
The IPC declares it when at least two adults or four children per 10,000 die daily, over 20 percent of households lack food, and 30 percent of children are acutely malnourished.
As of June 2025, Sudan is among the few countries in famine. First confirmed in August 2024 at Zamzam camp, it has spread to 10 areas, with 17 more at imminent risk.
Sondos and her family survived for weeks on nothing but millet before escaping to Tawila, where they now receive support from WFP.
UNICEF warns that malnutrition is rampant nationwide, leaving many children “reduced to skin and bones.”
But even that support is under threat unless WFP receives massive assistance.
“We urgently need guarantees of safe passage into Al-Fashir to deliver vital food and nutrition supplies. We also need donors to step up with additional funding, as current resources are not enough to keep pace with the rising needs and massive scale of this crisis,” says Kinzli.
There is a need for $645 million for the coming six months to be able to continue our operations, he adds.
Over the past two decades, Sudan’s Al-Fashir has absorbed waves of displaced people escaping the Janjaweed militias, many of whom now fight under the RSF banner.
More recently, new arrivals came after the RSF overran the nearby Zamzam camp, home to more than 500,000 internally displaced people.
Many of those who sought refuge in the city, are now trapped again.
“The main challenge is that Al-Fashir is besieged and active fighting is ongoing. The city is cut off from humanitarian access leaving the remaining population with little choice but to fend for survival with whatever limited supplies are left.”
Surviving on animal fodder
As access to food has collapsed, residents are surviving on ambaz; a byproduct made from pressed peanut, sesame, or sunflower seed residue.
Once used to feed livestock, it’s now being consumed by humans out of desperation. Some households are trying to grow small amounts of food inside their shelters, but these efforts fall far short of what’s needed to survive.
Civilian infrastructure has also come under attack. In June, a joint WFP and UNICEF convoy carrying food and nutrition supplies for Al-Fashir was ambushed, killing at least five aid workers and burning the supplies.
Despite securing clearance from Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission to dispatch convoys to Al-Fashir, WFP says the RSF has not responded to calls for a humanitarian pause.
“WFP is ready with trucks full of food assistance to send into Al-Fashir,” says Corinne Fleischer, WFP’s Director of Supply Chain and Delivery.
“We urgently need guarantees of safe passage.”
Because of the road closures and pipeline disruptions, some families in camps in eastern Sudan are now receiving nothing. As the siege grinds on and starvation deepens, the calls for help have yet to be answered.
