El-Fasher’s Shattered Dawn: A City Pushed to the Edge and the World That Looks Away
El-Fasher used to have a rhythm. Early mornings smelled of freshly baked kisra and tea, donkey carts rattled through sun-baked streets, and market sellers called out prices in a chorus that felt eternal. Now the city is a bruise on the map — captured, emptied, and for many, erased.
What happened
When the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overran El-Fasher — the army’s last stronghold in Darfur — more than 36,000 civilians fled their homes in a single surge of panic and exhaustion. They spilled out onto the roads like a slow-moving river of people: old men with sunburned cheeks, mothers carrying children whose limbs hung listlessly, young people with backpacks and nothing else.
Some walked west toward Tawila, a town that has become a reluctant refuge. Tawila already hosts roughly 650,000 internally displaced people, and now faces another wave of arrivals into makeshift camps where assistance is thin and patience wears short.
Voices from the front lines
“There is not a word big enough to cover the suffering here,” said Mathilde Vu, an advocacy manager working with the Norwegian Refugee Council, when I spoke with her about the exodus. “People have been starved, bombed, and blocked from aid for months. They drank rainwater. They ate animal feed. They tell us stories of neighbours who simply disappeared on the road — detained, or worse.”
A man who gave his name as Musa, who left with his family in the pre-dawn hours, told me by phone: “My wife and I pushed our children in a cart. At night we slept under the stars because there were no tents. The sound of shells keeps replaying in our heads. How do we go back?”
The human cost
This is not a war of strategy on a distant chessboard. It is a campaign of attrition that eats at the smallest, most ordinary things that keep life going: food, water, shelter, and dignity. After more than 18 months of siege tactics and bombardment, El-Fasher’s hospitals ran out of medicines. Markets closed. Traders fled. Aid convoys were turned away. People resorted to drinking pooled rainwater and scavenging animal feed to survive.
“We’re barely saving lives at the moment,” Vu told me bluntly. “We are delaying death.”
Compounding the crisis, aid agencies report outbreaks of cholera in displacement camps. With sanitation strained to breaking, the disease spreads fast; aid workers say people are dying weekly. Malnutrition rates are rising, and clinics are overwhelmed.
What aid looks like — and where it falls short
Relief organisations are stretched to their limits. Teams positioned roughly 60 km from El-Fasher — the first places people can trickle into — have received only a fraction of those fleeing. Of tens of thousands trying to escape, only some 5,000 have reached that particular reception point so far. Those who arrive are often severely malnourished, dehydrated and carrying the invisible weight of trauma.
Funding is a cliff-edge. Vu and other aid workers describe an “international neglect” — a yawning gap between needs and money. Around 70% of the financing needed for Sudan’s humanitarian response is unmet, officials say. The consequence is painfully simple: aid agencies must make excruciating choices about who receives what, and many are left behind.
- Short-term needs: emergency food, clean water, cholera treatment kits, shelter
- Medium-term needs: trauma counselling, rebuilding basic health services, sanitation facilities
- Long-term needs: safe returns, reconciliation mechanisms, accountability for crimes
Accounts of brutality and the uneasy promise of justice
The capture of El-Fasher has not been without footage and allegations. Videos circulated online showing fighters committing summary executions and standing amid the wreckage of burned vehicles and bodies. The RSF have said they detained several fighters accused of abuses during the operation, including a man widely seen in videos. A statement claimed “legal committees” were opening investigations and that the group would adhere to “law, rules of conduct and military discipline during wartime.”
For survivors, such statements offer little comfort. “Words on paper won’t feed my children or make my brother come back,” said Aisha, a teacher who fled El-Fasher. “We need safety, not promises.”
History echoes loudly
Darfur carries the weight of memory. Two decades ago, this region witnessed ethnically targeted atrocities that seared into global consciousness and left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced. The current events have ignited fears of a return to those darkest chapters. International monitors and humanitarian organisations have warned of potential mass killings and ethnic cleansing if violence and access restrictions continue.
Ask yourself: how many warnings must the world hear before action follows? How many photos of mud-smeared faces does it take to warrant a proper response?
Wider implications — why this matters beyond Sudan
This crisis is a nexus of larger global trends. It is a reminder that internal conflicts can rapidly become regional catastrophes when coupled with climate stress, weak institutions, and an international system that often reserves urgency for problems that fit into short media cycles. The funding shortfalls for Sudan reflect a broader pattern: as crises proliferate — from Gaza to Afghanistan, from the Sahel to Haiti — donor fatigue sets in, and the most vulnerable lose out.
There is also a geopolitical angle. The RSF and its supporters are part of a tangled web of relationships that complicate diplomatic pressure and create openings for unchecked violence. Without concerted high-level political pressure on the backers of warring parties, humanitarian law remains an aspiration rather than a rule enforced.
What can be done — and what you can ask for
It is easy to feel overwhelmed. But practical steps exist:
- Insist that your government increase humanitarian funding and press for corridors that guarantee safe access to civilians.
- Demand independent investigations into alleged war crimes and real accountability for perpetrators.
- Support organisations working on the ground with cash donations — flexible funding allows rapid response.
“We need political momentum at the highest level,” Vu urged. “Humanitarian appeals are not just line items in a budget. They are lifelines. Without pressure to stop the violence and ensure access, aid will always be chasing a fleeing population.”
Closing — the moral choice
I left the conversation with a lingering image: a child clutching a makeshift doll, eyes too old for their face. That image is not unique to El-Fasher; it crops up wherever conflict displaces millions. Sometimes the world looks at such scenes and offers condolences. Sometimes it moves. Which will we choose this time?
As readers across continents, we face a decision about attention — where to direct it, whom to urge our leaders to help, and how to hold institutions accountable. The people of El-Fasher and the hundreds of thousands living in camps like Tawila are not statistics. They are neighbours of humanity. And their survival depends as much on our outrage as on the rations that may or may not arrive tomorrow.
