Sudan’s Darfur Crisis Escalates: El-Fashir Under Siege

 By Mutunga Tobbias

The Common Pulse | August 2025

The humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan’s Darfur region is deepening, with North Darfur’s capital, El-Fashir, becoming the epicenter of one of Africa’s gravest crises in 2025. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary faction, has intensified its assault on the city, placing more than 600,000 civilians at risk, many of them women and children.

A City Under Siege

El-Fashir, long considered a fragile haven for displaced communities fleeing violence in other parts of Darfur, is now itself surrounded. Reports indicate that the RSF has cut off key supply routes, making food, medicine, and clean water increasingly scarce. Humanitarian organizations warn that the blockade could soon push the population into catastrophic famine conditions.

Displacement and Desperation

Since the escalation of violence earlier this year, more than half a million people have been forced from their homes. Camps around El-Fashir, already overcrowded, are overwhelmed with new arrivals. Families are crammed into makeshift shelters, with little access to healthcare, sanitation, or education for children.

Eyewitness accounts describe harrowing scenes: hospitals bombed, food warehouses looted, and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has repeatedly raised alarm over blocked aid convoys, while the World Food Programme (WFP) says its supplies could run out within weeks if access isn’t restored.

International Response

Despite global outcry, diplomatic efforts remain stalled. The African Union and United Nations have called for an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian corridors, but neither the RSF nor Sudan’s military leadership has shown willingness to de-escalate. Meanwhile, international donors are grappling with multiple crises worldwide, from Ukraine to Gaza, leaving Sudan’s plight underfunded and underreported.

The Risk of a Wider Collapse

Analysts warn that if El-Fashir falls, it could trigger a new wave of ethnic violence across Darfur, reminiscent of the atrocities of the early 2000s. The region’s fragile social fabric is already under immense strain, with communities divided along ethnic and political lines. Beyond Darfur, Sudan’s wider civil war threatens to spill across borders into Chad, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, risking a regional destabilization.

The World Should Pay Attention

Sudan’s crisis is not just a local tragedy, it is a global emergency in the making. With hundreds of thousands of children at risk of starvation, unchecked violence, and the collapse of vital infrastructure, the conflict could produce one of the world’s largest displacement crises in recent history.

For now, the people of El-Fashir remain trapped in a deadly siege, their future hanging in the balance. Without swift international action, Darfur could once again become a symbol of the world’s failure to protect the most vulnerable.