The Darfur Women Forum launched a campaign to save the hungry in El Fasher and called on the Sudanese women’s forums abroad and benefactors worldwide to urgently act to save the city’s residents from dying of hunger due to the prolonged siege imposed by the Rapid Support Forces on the city.

With the tightening grip of the Rapid Support Forces on El Fasher, it has become impossible to smuggle food supplies into the city by donkey, camel, or any other means, with reports of confiscation of goods, including medicines.

Last week, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expressed concern over reports from the besieged city of El Fasher in North Darfur about more than 60 deaths due to famine and malnutrition within just one week.

The neighborhoods in the east, southeast, and south of El Fasher are the most affected, where homes were destroyed, properties looted, and residents displaced to the west and northwest of the city. With the onset of rains, some displaced shelters collapsed while communal kitchens (takayas) have significantly decreased and are now at risk of shelling.

Large numbers of El Fasher residents have left in recent weeks, forced out by shelling, hunger, the near-total collapse of services, and despair over the ceasefire or any chance to improve their living conditions.

As the number of displaced persons in North Darfur rises, especially with many leaving El Fasher, the main source of humanitarian aid in most of North Darfur remains local NGOs, mutual aid organizations, and local communities funded by Sudanese abroad. Despite their courageous and utmost efforts, their capacity is simply overwhelmed by the scale of needs. International aid remains limited, according to humanitarian activists.

Activists and humanitarian actors called on Saturday via Radio Dabanga to enhance life-saving aid to save the hungry in El Fasher by expanding the scope of collective and individual cash transfers as a vital lifeline. They urgently called for increasing the value of transfers to match the high prices to save the lives of the hungry in El Fasher and Kordofan. Activists demanded that if land access to El Fasher and Kordofan becomes impossible, food and medicines should be delivered by air drops to prevent further deaths.