In the heart of Sudan’s North Darfur, the city of El Fasher has become a grim symbol of the country’s spiraling humanitarian crisis. After 500 harrowing days under siege, the city now stands as what UNICEF calls the “epicentre of child suffering,” where children face starvation, mass displacement, and relentless violence on a scale that is hard to fathom. With the siege entering its seventeenth month, the world’s attention is being drawn—once again—to the urgent plight of Sudan’s youngest and most vulnerable.
According to UNICEF and multiple international agencies, at least 600,000 people—half of them children—have fled El Fasher and its surrounding camps since the siege began in April 2024. Yet, the tragedy deepens for those left behind: an estimated 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, remain trapped inside the city, cut off from humanitarian aid for more than 16 months. As Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s Executive Director, starkly put it in a statement quoted by Keystone-SDA, “We are witnessing a devastating tragedy – children in El Fasher are starving while UNICEF’s lifesaving nutrition services are being blocked. Blocking humanitarian access is a grave violation of children’s rights, and the lives of children are hanging in the balance.”
The roots of this catastrophe can be traced back to the collapse of a fragile power-sharing agreement in April 2023. The ensuing civil war pitted Sudan’s military, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Initially erupting in the capital Khartoum, the conflict quickly spread to Darfur—a region with a long, troubled history of violence and displacement. Over the past two years, the war has killed about 40,000 people and displaced nearly 13 million, according to United Nations agencies. The numbers are staggering: nearly 25 million people across Sudan now experience acute hunger, with the crisis in El Fasher standing out as especially dire.
The RSF’s siege of El Fasher, which began in earnest in May 2024, has severed supply lines and left health facilities non-functional. Humanitarian workers say the situation is catastrophic. “Malnutrition, disease and violence are claiming young lives every day,” UNICEF said in a recent statement, as reported by The National. The agency warns that about 6,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition are now left without treatment, after mobile nutrition teams were forced to halt operations due to depleted supplies. Since January 2025 alone, more than 10,000 children have been treated for acute malnutrition—almost double the number from the previous year. But with resources exhausted, these services have now been suspended, leaving thousands of children at exponentially higher risk of death.
The violence has not spared those taking refuge. In the week leading up to August 27, 2025, at least 63 people—mostly women and children—died of hunger, UNICEF confirmed. That same week, reports emerged of another mass casualty event: seven children were killed in an attack on the Abu Shouk displacement camp just outside El Fasher. These tragedies are part of a broader pattern of grave violations. Since the start of the siege, UNICEF has verified more than 1,100 such incidents in El Fasher alone, including the killing and maiming of over 1,000 children. Dozens have been subjected to sexual violence, while others have been abducted or recruited by armed groups. The real scale of suffering, UNICEF warns, is almost certainly much higher due to limited access and verification challenges.
The siege has also brought Sudan’s worst cholera outbreak in decades to the fore. Since July 2024, more than 96,000 suspected cholera cases and 2,400 deaths have been reported nationwide. Darfur, and El Fasher in particular, have been hit hard, with nearly 5,000 cases and 98 deaths. Overcrowded camps around Tawila, Zamzam, and El Fasher itself have become breeding grounds for the disease, especially among children already weakened by hunger. In Mellit locality—where many displaced from El Fasher have sought shelter—acute malnutrition rates reached a record 34.2 percent in July, the highest since the war began.
Amid the devastation, calls for action have grown louder. UNICEF has repeatedly urged all parties to the conflict to halt the fighting and allow immediate, safe, and sustained humanitarian access to El Fasher and other affected areas. “Children must be protected at all times,” Russell emphasized. “They must have access to life-saving aid.” The agency’s appeals have been echoed by a coalition of peace brokers—including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the US, and Switzerland—who last week issued seven demands to ease the humanitarian crisis. These include keeping key aid routes open, ensuring safe passage for civilians, and protecting critical infrastructure from attack.
The RSF, which controls much of Darfur, has been accused of numerous human rights violations, including attacks on civilians and the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government army stands accused of bombing civilian residential areas, deepening the suffering of those trapped in the conflict. El Fasher, notably, is the last major city in Darfur still under government control—a fact that has made it a focal point of the fighting and the humanitarian blockade.
Health and education facilities have not been spared in the violence. According to UNICEF, 35 hospitals and six schools in El Fasher have been struck since the siege began, including the Saudi Maternal Teaching Hospital, which was hit more than ten times. In January, shelling destroyed the therapeutic health center at Abu Shouk camp, depriving thousands of malnourished children of desperately needed treatment. The compounding crises of hunger, disease, and violence have left families with few options but to flee—if they can—or to endure in increasingly desperate conditions.
UNICEF is also grappling with a severe funding shortfall. The agency says it urgently needs an additional $30.6 million to fund an emergency cholera response, including the delivery of vaccines, medicines, clean water, and other essentials. Working alongside the World Health Organization and other partners, UNICEF is preparing to deliver over 1.4 million oral cholera vaccine doses, but without more resources, the ability to curb the outbreak and prevent further loss of life is in jeopardy.
The international community faces a stark choice: respond with the urgency and resources the crisis demands, or risk witnessing an even greater tragedy unfold in El Fasher and beyond. As the civil war grinds on, the children of El Fasher—trapped by hunger, disease, and violence—remain in the balance, waiting for the world to act.