Half of the besieged population in El Fasher is children. In the first six months of this year, 239 children in el-Fasher died of hunger, according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Network.
The world's worst humanitarian crisis. That's how we keep referring to the violence, starvation, and genocide happening in Sudan, repeating it again and again to a world that has become both overwhelmed by and numb to the images of human suffering.
As you read this, people are being starved to death in North Darfur, a region in West Sudan that has a centuries-old history and, according to the creator of The Sudanese Kitchen Cookbook, the best food.
This is not news. The World Food Programme flagged the risk of severe hunger and malnutrition in March 2024, caused by the ongoing war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), formerly known as Janjaweed (Devils on Horseback).
The people of Darfur have been targeted by both the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed, who collectively committed genocide against Darfur's Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups in 2003.
In 2023, they turned on each other, but the reality for the people in Darfur remains the same: they are once again being attacked, their villages burned, their women and girls raped, and entire communities starved.
Since 2003, thousands of people have lived in Zamzam and Abu Shouk IDP camps, close to El Fasher, North Darfur's capital. Now, those camps have been bombed, raided, and deliberately starved, killing unknown numbers of people.
El Fasher, which the RSF has besieged since April 2024, is awaiting the same fate. Food is rapidly running out, clean water is no longer available, hospitals have collapsed, and humanitarian aid continues to be blocked from entering the city.
A spokesperson for the Displacement & Health Relief Network (DHRN) tells OkayAfrica that El Fasher's few remaining markets are often nearly empty. DHRN crowd-sources donations that are sent to volunteers inside El Fasher who risk their lives trying to find food for community kitchens, many of which have stopped functioning.
The price of sorghum and wheat in North Darfur is more than four times higher than in the rest of the country.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
"What is happening in Gaza is horrific and deserves all the attention it's getting and more. But the scale of suffering in Sudan eclipses Gaza, as if anyone thought that was possible," says Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.
The lab has been monitoring the war since May 2023, initially for the US Department of State. Using remote sensing data, primarily very high-resolution satellite imagery combined with open-source information available from the ground, their initial mission was to document violations of international humanitarian law by both RSF and SAF as part of the Jeddah process negotiations organized by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
In February 2024, the lab opted to work independently, primarily focusing on North Darfur, and stopped accepting funding support from the US Department of State.
"We watch from space with satellites and provide information to humanitarian organizations," Raymond explains. "We have been assisting organizations dealing with cholera and contributed to the IPC 5 declaration by the Famine Review Committee last summer for El Fasher, parts of Abu Shouk, and Zamzam."
IPC Phase 5 indicates the highest level of famine. A famine is characterised by severe food shortages, widespread acute malnutrition, and tens of thousands of deaths; once it is declared, many people have already died of starvation, and it's hard to slow it down.
The results of famine in the body include a breakdown of muscle and tissue, followed by a slowed metabolism, loss of the ability to regulate temperature, impaired kidney function, and a faltering immune system; essential organs lose their efficiency, and the body eventually succumbs.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, four famines have been confirmed in the past 15 years: in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and most recently in Sudan in 2024.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
"Our primary focus has been on detecting RSF attacks through thermal anomaly data from NASA, combined with very high-resolution satellite imagery analysis," says Raymond. "We've been detecting where they've attacked and where they're going to attack."
The lab was able to warn Zamzam before it was wiped out in April. "Once the main attack started on April 11, it happened very quickly, and people evacuated, but they were too weak and many died on the road due to lack of food and water," he says.
El Fasher is surrounded and trapped. Since the RSF besieged the city to make it its capital in a divided Sudan, barely two or three UN aid trucks have entered the city. People are eating ambaz, animal fodder, to survive.
The "Joint Forces," non-Arab groups fighting against the RSF, are slowly losing ground. "People are in late-stage wasting now, and they're being bombarded all the time," says Raymond.
Spurred in part by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab's reports, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2736 in June 2024, calling for an immediate ceasefire in El Fasher. This resolution has not been enforced and has had no consequences.
"The international community has failed the people of Sudan and particularly the people of Darfur," says Raymond. "There's no concerted diplomatic pressure, and there needs to be pressure on the United Arab Emirates or else the RSF will not stop."
If you want to help, consider donating to organizations trying to feed the people in El Fasher, writing to your government, and joining protests in your area. Don't stop talking about Sudan.
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