14 October 2025 | 11:00 CAT
4-minute read

Darfur on the Brink: Siege of Al-Farshad Ushers in Humanitarian Catastrophe and Risk of Ethnic Atrocities

Al-Farshad, the de facto capital of North Darfur, lies under the iron grip of an intensifying siege. For more than a year, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have encircled the city, severing supply routes and constricting access to food, medicine and humanitarian aid. Over recent days, drone and artillery strikes have dramatically escalated, hitting civilian shelters and vital infrastructure, leaving an already exhausted population teetering on the edge of collapse.

According to local resistance committees, the city now loses about 30 lives daily to bombardments, disease and starvation. Entire families have been entombed beneath rubble; some survivors speak of people “burned alive inside temporary shelters.” Hospitals, displacement centres, masjids and even homes are no longer safe. The siege has choked the city’s lifelines — food, fuel and medicine are all but absent, and diseases long held at bay are now claiming lives.

One such account came during this week’s Africa Report on Radio Islam International interview with Sudanese journalist Saeed Abdalla, based in Johannesburg, whose reporting and analysis contextualise the deeper realities behind the headlines.

The United Nations has now issued warnings of ethnically driven atrocities, pointing to mounting evidence of targeted attacks on non-Arab communities in Al-Farshad’s Dariya-Ula district. Between September 19 and 29, repeated RSF drone, artillery and ground incursions reportedly struck neighbourhoods believed to be predominantly inhabited by non-Arab groups. Civilians attempting to bring in food reportedly faced torture or execution.

Without swift and robust intervention, large-scale ethnic violence in Darfur may no longer be a looming threat — it could be unfolding quietly. The spectre of renewed genocide, a label used during the earlier Darfur crisis in the early 2000s, haunts the present conflict.

Further compounding the concern, international human rights experts have declared that the violations in Darfur may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Abdalla described the shelling on a civilian shelter that killed at least 60 people, many of them women and children, and how hospitals, displacement centres and masjids have all been repeatedly hit.

He said, “Entire families remain trapped under rubble and survivors describe people burned alive inside temporary shelters.”

Tracing the consequences, Abdalla noted that “the siege has cut off food, fuel and medicine, spreading hunger and diseases among the people in Al-Farshad.”

He emphasised that there is currently no military solution to the crisis — only more civilian suffering — and that pressure from an aligned international front is crucial to enforcing ceasefires, enabling aid access, and charting a political path forward.

As the conflict in Gaza wavers into a pause, there is a tentative sense in some diplomatic circles that global attention might at last shift toward Sudan. Abdalla expressed guarded optimism: with Gaza relief underway, more eyes could turn to Darfur’s unfolding disaster. But he insists such a shift must be backed by coordinated action.

He called for a unified posture from the African Union, Gulf states, the UN, and Western powers — all applying pressure on both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to cease hostilities, permit humanitarian access, and return to political negotiation. Yet, he warned, without that pressure, the crisis will continue unabated.

This moment presents a peril: an under-resourced, fractured international response could leave Darfur to its fate. And since the conflict’s initial outbreak in April 2023, Sudan’s war has already precipitated one of the largest displacement crises worldwide, with millions uprooted and multiple regions exposed to famine risk.

The Darfur region holds a painful memory. From 2003 to 2005, the Janjaweed militias — predecessors of today’s RSF — carried out a campaign of scorched-earth attacks, ethnic cleansing and mass displacement that led to more than 200 000 deaths and the dislocation of millions.

Today’s war, pitting the RSF against the SAF, has reignited these fears. In North Darfur, attacks on displacement camps such as Zamzam and Abu Shouk — both once bastions of relative safety — have left hundreds dead, myriad structures razed and medical services destroyed.

Recently, the UN documented 89 civilian deaths over a ten-day span in the region, many linked to drone and artillery strikes, and reports of summary executions targeting individuals from minority tribes. In a recent strike on a shelter in El Fasher, at least 60 people, largely women and children, perished.

Medical NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders warn of “mass atrocities” underway, with deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and systematic targeting of marginalised communities.

“Only with the pressure on the warring factors … and … humanitarian aid access … can we reach the people in desperate need,” Abdalla said.

Time is short. Unless action arrives soon, Darfur’s latest chapter may be its darkest.

Listen to the Africa Report on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.