El Fasher … A Crisis of Human Conscience

Dr Inas Mohamed Ahmed
War has many faces and countless pains. War means layers of suffering that endure for years upon years, and it is civilians who usually pay the price – in death, loss, hunger, malnutrition, violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other tragedies that linger during war and long after it ends.
What is happening today in El Fasher is the worst humanitarian crisis Sudan has faced since the war began, caused by the brutal siege imposed by the terrorist militia. The blockade has entered its fifteenth month with no sign of an end to the humanitarian catastrophe.
International and regional humanitarian organisations have placed full responsibility on the militia for the lack of medical supplies, life-saving medicines, foodstuffs and infant formula, and for its refusal to allow the opening of humanitarian corridors under the suffocating blockade it has enforced.
Erik Pedersen, the Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Food Programme, stated: “Everyone in El Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive. After more than two years of war, people have exhausted every coping mechanism available.” What is unfolding is the world’s greatest hunger crisis, and El Fasher is cut off from the outside world. Has the world chosen silence in the face of El Fasher’s suffering?
Since May 2024, El Fasher – capital of Darfur region and of North Darfur State – has been under the militia’s unjust siege. This prompted Prime Minister Kamal Idris to send letters to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the UN Security Council, urging action to open humanitarian corridors because civilians in El Fasher are dying of hunger. According to UN reports, nearly 40% of children under the age of fifteen are suffering from acute malnutrition, meaning they are on the path to death. What is the world waiting for?
The criminal militia cares nothing for the fact that international law criminalises the starvation of civilians as a war crime. Instead, it insists on using starvation as a weapon against civilians. It is fully aware of Security Council Resolution 2736, adopted in June 2024, which demands that it lift the siege of El Fasher, de-escalate tensions, allow civilians safe passage to more secure areas within or outside the city, facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance, and protect civilian facilities such as hospitals, schools, and places of worship. The resolution also calls for the protection of medical staff and humanitarian aid workers. Yet the militia has trampled the resolution underfoot with recklessness and brutality – bombarding hospitals, assassinating medical staff at Um Kadada hospital, shelling the Saudi Hospital in El Fasher ten times in deliberate, repeated attacks, as well as bombarding the Southern Hospital in El Fasher and destroying its emergency and trauma ward entirely, forcing it out of service.
Targeting hospitals is a grave violation of international humanitarian law. Hunger, disease, the lack of medicine and the destruction of hospitals together mean mass death for civilians in El Fasher. What more is the world waiting for?
On 2 June, the militia launched an attack on a humanitarian convoy of 15 trucks belonging to the World Food Programme and UNICEF – cold-bloodedly blocking aid from reaching women and children. Hunger in the region has reached phase three, according to national organisations. UNICEF reported in August that more than 640,000 children under the age of five had been exposed to violence, hunger and disease. With food supplies gone, people have resorted to eating animal fodder known locally as ambaz – the residue from groundnut and sesame oil production – just to stay alive. What is the world waiting for?
People have eaten the grasses of the land, but they have not surrendered an inch of it. Children are dying every passing minute while pleas grow louder, echoing across the globe – but the cursed militia tightens its blockade to kill more women and children through starvation. The United Nations has yet to announce a concrete plan to break the deadly siege or to establish safe corridors. When will they understand that hunger and disease will not wait for their meetings and statements, and that every passing minute means more victims – mostly children, children, children! Where are you, United Nations? Where are you, Security Council? Where are you, UNICEF?
The world must act. We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe – a real humanitarian crisis. Do not let it become a mere “crisis of conscience”. Death does not wait.
O Lord, protect El Fasher and its people. O God, be their helper, show them Your mercy. They are Your servants who have endured war, death and hunger. Glory be to You – they and we have no helper but You, O Allah.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=7126