Position Paper | August 29, 2025 – El Fasher
Overview:
For more than sixteen months, El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has been under a suffocating siege imposed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The city has become the scene of a worsening humanitarian and human rights tragedy, with thousands of women, children, the elderly, and the sick paying the price, first and foremost. According to a recent UNICEF report, more than a quarter of a million civilians, including approximately 130,000 children, are trapped in and around the city, while nearly 600,000 people, half of whom are children and women, have been displaced in a bitter, harsh, and costly wave of displacement.
Sudan Rights Watch Network affirms that this catastrophe is not merely a natural consequence of the armed conflict, but rather a tragic reflection of systematic policies that directly target civilians through starvation, denial of humanitarian access, and targeting vital infrastructure, particularly markets, health facilities, and water sources. What is happening in this state is a blatant example of slow genocide using starvation as a weapon of war, a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, the Four Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, and a flagrant violation of basic human decency.
The siege of El Fasher and the existing displacement camps in the state cannot be understood in isolation from the Rapid Support Forces’ motives for subjugating civilians to its allegiance, in conjunction with its military and political objectives of dividing the state from the opposing parties in the war. This exposes the Rapid Support Forces’ lack of any moral or legal restraint regarding the protection of civilians and reveals the long-standing accumulation of policies of exclusion and systematic violence against children and women by militias.
Systematic Grave Violations:
According to a UNICEF report, since April 2024, more than 1,100 grave violations against children have been verified in El Fasher alone. More than 1,000 children have been killed or injured, some inside their homes, in markets, or in displacement camps. At least 23 children have been raped or sexually assaulted, while others have been abducted or forcibly recruited into armed groups.
The Human Rights Monitoring Network – Sudan emphasizes, based on its ongoing field monitoring and documentation of human rights violations throughout the Darfur region, that these violations are not isolated incidents, but rather an organized policy of terror aimed at destroying the social fabric and terrorizing and impoverishing the population. The recruitment and targeting of child soldiers and the bombing of schools and hospitals are not merely military actions; they are war crimes and systematic crimes against humanity aimed at destroying societies. Sexual violence against girls is not limited to the body; Rather, it leaves long-lasting psychological and social scars and perpetuates the cycle of violence for future generations.
Children between hunger and death:
El Fasher, and indeed all of North Darfur, today reflects the extreme suffering experienced during the April war. Children are starving after therapeutic feeding programs were suspended due to the depletion of supplies and the prevention of aid entry. More than 6,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition have been left to their fates, deprived of life-saving nutritional treatment and healthcare. A UNICEF report indicates shocking mass deaths; 63 people, mostly women and children, died in just one week as a result of starvation.
The network notes that this tragedy is not merely a result of negligence or incompetence, but rather the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war, particularly by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has imposed a siege on North Darfur since April 2024. The same pattern of targeting children and women is repeated to weaken civilian communities that the warring parties perceive as disloyal and unsupportive. Hunger is not limited to physical harm; Rather, it leaves lasting psychological scars, particularly on women and children, including trauma, delayed mental and physical development, and the threat of a shattered generation that may lose the ability to learn and lead a normal, healthy life in the future.
Collapse of Basic Services:
Health and education facilities, as well as economic assets such as markets and commercial food supply chains, have become frequent targets of bombing, looting, kidnapping, and killing. The report states that 35 health facilities and six schools have been attacked, including the Saudi Children’s Hospital, which was hit more than ten times. In January 2025, the treatment center in Abu Shouk camp was destroyed, depriving thousands of malnourished children of treatment.
Sudan Rights Watch Network explains that this systematic collapse of basic services contributes to a spiraling cycle of death; there is no health, no education, and no clean water. The risks to children and women of all ages, including pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, the elderly, divorced women, and others, are catastrophically multiplied.
Targeting markets, schools, and hospitals, whether in El Fasher or in various displacement camps, particularly Zamzam and Abu Shouk, is not just a normal side effect of war. It is a deliberate strategy to weaken life and civil society, and destroy the future of children, who are supposed to be societies’ hope for recovery, development, and reconstruction.
Cholera and Malnutrition: A Double Catastrophe:
The ongoing blockade coincides with the worst cholera outbreak in decades in the country, particularly in the Darfur region, since last June. According to a UNICEF report, more than 96,000 cases and 2,400 deaths have been recorded across Sudan since July 2024, including 5,000 cases. The Sudan Rights Watch Network – Sudan recorded more than 2,838 confirmed cases, including 156 deaths, as of August 25 in South Darfur state. Since the outbreak began in the region, more than 1,430 confirmed cases have been recorded, including 26 deaths. 220 cases remain in quarantine in dire conditions. The daily infection rate ranged between 45 and 90 cases in several areas of North Darfur, particularly Tawila, as of July 26.
Amid this, children weakened by hunger have become vulnerable to epidemics, waterborne diseases, and poor sanitation, including cholera. In the Tawila and Zamzam camps, as well as in El Fasher itself, children face a compounded threat: deadly hunger and deadly diseases. In Mellit, according to a UNICEF report, which hosts thousands of displaced people, malnutrition rates have reached more than 34%, a shocking figure that reveals the scale of the catastrophe in the region. These conditions reveal how starvation, lack of clean water, and the spread of disease are multipliers of a silent genocide, killing civilians silently and slowly.
Responsibilities of Sudanese and International Parties:
Sudan Rights Watch Network emphasizes that what is happening in El Fasher is not a natural tragedy, but rather a direct result of the imposed blockade and the lack of political and national will to address the broader crisis related to the April war. All warring Sudanese parties bear a legal and moral responsibility to protect civilians and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid. Their silence or slowness not only constitutes practical complicity in the targeting of children, but also indirect complicity in crimes occurring in full view of everyone.
As noted, the international and regional communities may seem content with their role of issuing timid statements from time to time, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians, particularly women and children, hostage to hunger, disease, and systematic violence. The continuation of this situation represents a stain on the human conscience locally, regionally, and globally, amidst the intersection of interests and intertwined agendas. It reflects the double standards in dealing with war crises and their repercussions, where the speed and effectiveness of intervention vary according to the geographic location and the political, diplomatic, and media power of the state and actors across their various ideological, social, and other spectrums.
Urgent Demands and Recommendations:
Based on and committed to human rights, moral, and humanitarian responsibilities, Sudan Rights Watch Network emphasizes the need to work and consider the following:
- The need to immediately lift the siege on El Fasher and the entire state, and to ensure unconditional and unhindered access to humanitarian aid.
- The necessity of declaring a comprehensive and sustainable humanitarian truce, beginning in El Fasher and extending to all conflict areas in the region and the country.
- The necessity of ensuring the resumption and security of health, educational, and commercial facilities, such as markets and food supply chains, as they are civilian objects protected under international, regional, and national laws.
- The necessity of developing plans and taking strict legal measures to hold accountable parties responsible for the use of starvation as a weapon of war and for grave violations against civilians, including children, including killing, forced recruitment, and sexual violence.
- The necessity of enabling United Nations organizations and local partners to resume relief operations and deliver aid to conflict areas without hindrance or challenges.
Conclusion:
The Sudan Rights Watch Network – Sudan emphasizes that the continued siege of El Fasher and North Darfur as a whole only means prolonging a silent massacre that claims the lives of thousands of civilians, including children and other vulnerable groups, on a daily basis.
Starvation, the spread of epidemics, and sexual and gender-based violence, particularly rape, are not just repercussions of an ongoing war; they are systematic tools for subjugating entire communities. Silence, inaction, and slow response at all levels continue to compound the tragedy, exacerbate suffering, and render children hostage to hunger, disease, and merciless violence.
The Network calls for a decisive and definitive end to these complex crimes at this critical contextual moment, before El Fasher and the state’s camps become eternal witnesses to the utter failure to protect the most basic of human rights: the right to life. Let the memory of this crisis remain an urgent call for human justice and the human rights movement worldwide.
Sudan Rights Watch Network – Sudan
August 29, 2025