Trapped by Hunger and War: El Fasher’s Daily Struggle for Survival

In North Darfur’s capital El Fasher, hunger and conflict have created a desperate fight for survival. For eight-year-old Sondos, who fled with her family to Tawila displacement camp, life was reduced to a battle against bombs and starvation.

“Hunger forced us to leave,” she said, recalling the weeks spent surviving on nothing but millet in the besieged city. “Only hunger and bombs.”

Sondos is among the hundreds of thousands who have escaped El Fasher, yet many more remain trapped. Blocked trade routes and supply lines have cut the city off from humanitarian assistance, driving prices for basic staples such as flour and sorghum to unimaginable heights. Community kitchens that once offered lifelines have shut down, and reports suggest some residents are surviving on animal fodder and food waste.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been able to provide digital cash assistance to about a quarter of a million people inside El Fasher. This has enabled them to buy what little remains in the markets, but the need is overwhelming.

“Everyone in El Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Perdison, WFP’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. “People’s coping mechanisms have been completely exhausted by over two years of war.”

Families on the move

For those who do escape, survival is not guaranteed. Tawila camp, now home to nearly 400,000 displaced people, is a sprawling stretch of makeshift tents offering little protection from the rains. For many families, rations of high-energy biscuits, sorghum, vegetable oil and salt from WFP are the only food they receive.

Mohamed, a 47-year-old father, described a harrowing journey that took him from the famine-hit Zamzam camp to El Fasher and finally to Tawila. Along the way, he said, many died of thirst.

“Many of them were begging for water,” he explained. “A single cup was divided among four people. Each person had to have only one sip, just enough to reach their stomach.”

Jamila, another Tawila resident, has known hunger at its worst. Her sister died of starvation earlier this year at Zamzam camp.

“The worst thing we faced was hunger and the loss of our brothers and sisters. It is hard to lose a sibling forever,” she said. “The hunger that also persists until today is very difficult.”

Jamila recounted how her family walked at night, with dozens of others, to reach Tawila. Along the way, fellow Sudanese helped them at water points. Now she depends on WFP rations to feed her family. “I can boil it or mill it and prepare several meals with it,” she explained. “It lasts through the days where we do not have anything.”

A hunger crisis of global proportions

Sudan’s conflict has created the world’s largest hunger crisis. An estimated 25 million people, half the country’s population, are facing acute hunger. Among them are 3.5 million women and children suffering from malnutrition. WFP currently supports more than four million Sudanese every month, including 600,000 women and children with nutritional supplements. This support has eased catastrophic hunger in some parts of Central and West Darfur, but progress remains fragile while access to key hotspots like El Fasher is denied.

“Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost,” Perdison warned.

Food trucks waiting at the border

WFP has food convoys ready and waiting. “WFP is ready with trucks full of food assistance to send into El Fasher,” said Corinne Fleischer, WFP’s Director of Supply Chain and Delivery. “We urgently need guarantees of safe passage.”

Clearance has already been granted by the Humanitarian Aid Commission in Port Sudan, yet the Rapid Support Forces, who have laid siege to El Fasher for over a year, have not given their approval for safe humanitarian passage.

As hunger and conflict continue to feed one another, the urgency could not be greater. WFP requires 645 million US dollars over the next six months to continue its emergency food, cash and nutrition programmes across Sudan. For children like Sondos, mothers like Jamila, and men like Mohamed, that support represents the difference between life and death.

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