For more than 500 harrowing days, the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur region has endured a relentless siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group whose tactics have drawn sharp warnings from the United Nations and humanitarian organizations. As violence escalates and civilians are caught in the crossfire, the city teeters on the brink of what UN human rights chief Volker Türk has described as “an even greater catastrophe.”
On Thursday, October 2, 2025, Türk issued a dire warning that civilians in El Fasher face the imminent risk of large-scale atrocities if urgent action is not taken. According to the UN and reports from aid groups on the ground, the RSF has intensified its campaign with artillery shelling, drone strikes, and ground incursions, targeting not only military positions but also civilian infrastructure and neighborhoods sheltering the displaced. The RSF’s reported deployment of long-range drones in South Darfur has only heightened fears of further escalation in the coming days, as noted by AP and the European Sting.
Between September 19 and September 29, 2025, the violence reached a grim crescendo: at least 91 civilians were killed in attacks that struck homes, markets, and places of worship. On September 19, a drone strike on a mosque alone claimed the lives of at least 67 people. Just days later, two separate attacks hit a bustling market in the Daraja Oula neighborhood, and on September 30, a community kitchen in the Abu Shouk neighborhood was shelled, killing 23 more, according to the United Nations and corroborated by the Sudan Doctors Network.
These attacks, observers warn, are not random. They appear to form part of a deliberate campaign to forcibly displace populations and break the will of those who remain. The Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), one of the last government-held areas in Darfur, has been repeatedly targeted. The Sudan Doctors Network described the RSF siege as “a systematic crime represented by depriving civilians of their right to life and targeting El Fasher citizens with famine as a weapon of war.” The group further warned that the continuation of this siege could mean El Fasher is entering “a phase of silent genocide against tens of thousands of women and children.”
The humanitarian toll is staggering. The ongoing civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese military, which erupted in April 2023, has already killed at least 40,000 people and displaced as many as 12 million, according to the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Over 24 million people are now facing acute food insecurity, the World Food Program reports. In El Fasher, the situation has grown especially dire: UNICEF said that more than 10,000 children have been treated for severe acute malnutrition since January 2025, double the figure from the previous year. In a single week, at least 63 people—mostly women and children—died of malnutrition, and the city’s supply lines have been completely severed, forcing health facilities and mobile nutrition teams to suspend their services. Treatment for an estimated 6,000 children with severe acute malnutrition has been cut off.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has seen a 60% surge in patients arriving at its Tawila hospital, roughly 60 kilometers from El Fasher, since September 25. MSF’s Medical Referent Team Leader in Tawila, Mouna Hanebali, told the Associated Press that “the most severely wounded rarely survive the six-day walk from El Fasher to Tawila. Some internally displaced people report having to bury their relatives on the road.” Between September 25 and October 1, MSF treated 484 patients, including 111 children, most suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, gunshot wounds, torture, or sexual violence.
The siege’s impact goes beyond hunger and violence. Journalists trapped in El Fasher face a climate of terror, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Seven journalists shared testimonies of violence, arrests, rape, and starvation, with RSF fighters reportedly using informants to identify and target media personnel. One unnamed journalist described being beaten and gang-raped by armed men after her home was raided. “Everyone is afraid to work,” said Lana Awad Hassan, a journalist who fled after being shot in the leg by the RSF. “Both the RSF and the Sudanese army target journalists, but that does not stop us.”
As the violence intensifies, calls for humanitarian intervention have grown more urgent. Türk has repeatedly emphasized that “civilians who remain in El Fasher—including the elderly, people with disabilities, and those with chronic illnesses—must be protected.” He has called for the “safe and voluntary passage of civilians out of El Fasher, and throughout their movement along key exit routes and at checkpoints controlled by different armed actors,” citing persistent reports of executions, torture, abductions, and looting. The risk of ethnically motivated abuses is high, with recent history providing grim precedent: during the RSF’s offensive on Zamzam camp in April, sexual violence was reportedly used against Zaghawa women and girls.
Türk has also demanded “immediate and unhindered access” for humanitarian aid, as residents face dwindling food, water, and health care amid skyrocketing prices. “As essential supplies are dwindling daily, and prices are skyrocketing, the recent attack on one of the few remaining community kitchens will further diminish what remains of the right to food,” he said, as cited by UN News. He renewed his call for the siege to be lifted and for humanitarian access to be ensured, stating, “Atrocities are not inevitable; they can be averted if all actors take concrete action to uphold international law, demand respect for civilian life and property, and prevent the continued commission of atrocity crimes.”
The Sudanese military, for its part, has claimed to have inflicted losses on the RSF, including the killing of foreign mercenaries allegedly specializing in drone systems. On September 29, the military airdropped limited aid on El Fasher—the first such delivery since fighting escalated in April—though aid workers stress that these efforts are woefully insufficient to meet the city’s needs.
Internationally, Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty has expressed support for efforts to end the siege during a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart, though concrete steps remain unclear. Meanwhile, the Sudan Doctors Network has accused the global community, including the United Nations, of “their silence and failure to intervene despite the clear magnitude of the tragedy.”
As the siege grinds on, the fate of El Fasher’s civilians hangs in the balance. The warnings from the UN, medical groups, and aid organizations are stark: without immediate intervention, the city could soon witness atrocities on a scale not seen in years, with the most vulnerable—women, children, the elderly, and the sick—paying the highest price.
