Sudan war: El Fasher’s 500-day siege leaves women facing famine and death
Story by NADJA editors
Photo: Women who have been internally displaced (IDPs) sell charcoal on a market in El Fasher, North Dafur, 2015. By Roman Deckert / CC BY-SA 4.0
- Women and girls in El Fasher have been cut off from aid and protection for more than 500 days, facing famine-level conditions and relentless attacks
- The UN has recorded at least 125 civilian deaths in the past three weeks; the true toll is believed to be higher
- Sexual violence and starvation are being used as methods of warfare in breach of international law, UN Women warns
Women and girls in North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher, are facing starvation, indiscriminate bombardment, death and sexual violence, UN Women warns. For more than 500 days, a crippling siege has severed humanitarian aid and protection. In the past three weeks alone, the United Nations has recorded at least 125 civilian deaths in the area, including summary executions — with the actual death toll believed to be higher.
Since Sudan’s civil war broke out in 2023 following a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), more than 150,000 people have died. Across the country, the economy is in crisis and essential water and sanitation, health services and markets have been devastated.
More than 12 million people have been displaced since, in what the UN has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. North Darfur now hosts 1.79 million internally displaced people (IDPs), accounting for 8% of Sudan’s total, more than half of them women and girls.
Starvation and violence against women as weapons of war
In July, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) outlined a desperate situation for civilians in and around El Fasher. Their report, Besieged, Attacked, Starved, exposes systematic patterns of violence, including looting, mass killings, sexual violence, abductions, starvation and attacks on markets, health facilities, and other civilian infrastructure.
“As patients and communities tell their stories to our teams and ask us to speak out, while their suffering is hardly on the international agenda, we felt compelled to document these patterns of relentless violence that have been crushing countless lives in general indifference and inaction over the past year,” says Mathilde Simon, MSF’s humanitarian affairs adviser.
Ongoing violence and shelling are disrupting food supply systems and access, with starvation deliberately inflicted on civilians. Women and girls are enduring famine-level conditions, with families now surviving on animal feed and tree leaves. “Children died from malnutrition. We were eating ambaz (residue of peanuts ground for oil), like everyone, although usually it’s used for animals,” a displaced woman told MSF.
Violations against women and girls are mounting. Sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, is widespread and systematically deployed as a weapon of war. “I am speaking about the bitter and painful suffering of women and girls trapped in the city of El Fasher. We are facing death by missiles, starvation, daily violations and rape,” said a mother still trapped in the city, speaking to UN Women Sudan.
More than 41 health and educational facilities in the state have been destroyed, and supplies of medicine have been depleted. Pregnant women are giving birth without skilled attendants and have no access to emergency obstetric care. Women in need of reproductive health services and survivors of rape have no access to medical support.
From leaders of the revolution to targets of war
Dr Rabab Baldo, a member of FemWise-Africa and PeaceWomen Across the Globe’s Feminists Connecting for Peace network, has played a prominent role in Sudan’s peacemaking efforts since the 1990s. In an interview with NADJA last year, she explained that the targeting of women is rooted in both inequality and backlash.
Years of policing under the Public Order Act gave the police extensive powers to punish women for how they behaved and dressed, including administering lashings for wearing trousers in public. This, coupled with rising rates of child marriage galvanised women to organise and help lead the 2019 uprising; Baldo said women began mobilising as early as 2013.
“We started to organise ourselves and come up with a plan to change the regime. There was a collective effort from Sudanese people, especially women, inside the country, in the diaspora and internally displaced people (IDP) camps to come together. Student voices were very loud. We were well organised,” she said.
Since then, sexual violence has been used as a strategy to punish, terrorise and silence the communities women helped mobilise. “Since it started, the war has been fought on the bodies of women,” Baldo said. “Rape in RSF areas has become a trend. We have the reports from fact-finding missions, as well as reports from women on the ground who are providing psychosocial and trauma healing for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence… Two-year-old children and 80-year-old women have been raped. Women have been taken to different areas from the capital Khartoum and from Darfur, to be enslaved for sexual purposes.”
For months, humanitarian organisations have been unable to reach El Fasher, and calls for urgent civilian protection and safe, sustained humanitarian access have intensified over the past year.
“The world cannot remain silent. Member States and the international community must act with urgency and courage. For the women and girls in El Fasher, every day is a matter of survival. The time to act is now,” UN Women said in a press release.
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