More than 30 people have been killed in the latest assault on el-Fasher, a key city in Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, according to activist sources. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias launched heavy artillery attacks on Sunday, targeting residential buildings and public markets. The Resistance Committees in el-Fasher, an activist network tracking the conflict, reported dozens more wounded. The RSF renewed shelling on Monday, though no new casualty figures were immediately available.
El-Fasher remains the last major stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Darfur. For over a year, the RSF has sought control of the city, intensifying its assaults recently after battlefield losses in Khartoum and other eastern and central regions of Sudan. Home to over one million residents, el-Fasher also shelters hundreds of thousands displaced by the ongoing violence.
The humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating. Less than a week ago, RSF attacks on el-Fasher and nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps killed more than 400 people, according to United Nations reports. The UN said up to 400,000 people were forced to flee the Zamzam camp, now largely inaccessible to humanitarian aid.
On Monday, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called the situation “horrifying” after phone conversations with SAF general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF deputy commander Abdelrahim Dagalo, both of whom pledged to allow full humanitarian access. However, aid organizations warn that continued RSF offensives could plunge el-Fasher into devastating urban warfare and trigger another massive displacement crisis.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) described the current conditions as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around the besieged city.
The United Nations has issued a stark warning about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan. Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said on Sunday that the humanitarian community is facing “critical and intensifying operational challenges” in North Darfur.
She emphasized that, despite repeated appeals, access to el-Fasher and surrounding areas remains “dangerously restricted,” significantly increasing the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people in urgent need of aid.