Sudan’s El Fasher nears collapse amid famine and relentless strikes : NPR

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In Darfur, Sudan, the town of El Fasher is on the verge of falling. It has been under siege for 18 months by a paramilitary group as part of a civil war with the army. NPR’s Emmanuel Akinwotu reports.

EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Voice messages from besieged civilians trapped in a nightmare.

MOHAMED DUDA: The situation in El Fasher at the moment is very horrible, you know?

AKINWOTU: Mohamed Duda (ph) is fighting to survive in El Fasher, where the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group has besieged Darfur’s historic capital for more than a year.

DUDA: There is a lack – a total lack of food, a total lack of medicine.

AKINWOTU: According to the UN, more than a quarter of a million people are still there, barely able to leave their homes due to incessant artillery bombardments and drone strikes.

DUDA: People who depend on animal food, called ambaz.

AKINWOTU: Duda says he and his family are forced to eat ambaz, or animal fodder. But even that won’t last.

DUDA: Every day, children die of hunger, and also elders die of hunger.

AKINWOTU: A battalion of the Sudanese army was defending the town, which was home to more than 2 million people before the war. But this unit is almost defeated, cut off from the Sudanese army, which controls northern, central and eastern Sudan, while the RSF controls most of Darfur and is now fighting to control it entirely by besieging the last city to resist it. But the violence in El Fasher is not only due to the civil war.

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: This is the last battle of the Darfur genocide that began more than 20 years ago, in 2003 and 2005.

AKINWOTU: Nathaniel Raymond is the director of the Humanitarian Research Laboratory at Yale University, whose expert analysis of the war has provided evidence to the UN Security Council. They documented evidence of ethnic cleansing by the RSF and allied Arab militias against African ethnic groups.

RAYMOND: And many of those stuck inside the city came to El Fasher seeking protection more than 20 years ago from the U.N. forces who have now left, many of them – the majority – non-Arabs, Zaghawa, Fur and Berti.

AKINWOTU: The genocide 20 years ago killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million, according to the UN. And it exploded again during the war in Sudan, which caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

RAYMOND: The international community has essentially written press releases and given press conferences to express its dismay at the situation in El Fasher. But despite its warnings, the international community has done basically nothing.

AKINWOTU: Including, he said, the lack of pressure from countries like the United States on allies accused of fueling violence, like the United Arab Emirates.

Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Lagos.

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