*Aid workers say they no longer have basic ingredients to provide food*
*Only 10 donkeys' worth of goods entering city each day*
*RSF carried out rapes, abductions, and burned people alive after taking Zamzam, says rights group*
FRI 30 MAY -- Aid workers in besieged El Fasher have described a disastrous humanitarian situation unfolding in the city, with food running out and civilians facing daily bombardment by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
El Fasher, which is home to around two million people, is the only major city in Darfur not under RSF control, and over recent months has faced waves of shelling amid an ever-tightening siege.
Speaking to Avaaz, volunteer Adam said community kitchens no longer have access to corn or wheat, while the price of basic supplies like sugar has reached thousands of dollars per sack.
“We used to have goods coming in regularly through vehicles, but now the only goods that enter the city come on donkeys,” he said.
“For the entire city of El Fasher, we have no more than ten donkeys that enter the city carrying goods per day. Even these people carrying limited supplies on their donkeys get questioned and interrogated at RSF [checkpoints].
“We used to make pasta and rice, and now there is none of that. We then used to make aseeda [a dough made with flour] and now we can’t. We have to make do with what is available.”
Adam said people in the city are having to pay a 100% commission to get cash from savings on banking apps, creating a “cash crisis”, while life-saving medications have all but vanished.
“I can say that we can't survive like this,” he said. “If no goods enter the city, we might start eating tree leaves in two weeks. My words are not enough to describe how disastrous the situation is. This war is on the citizens and citizens alone - we are the victims.”
See our Voices From The Ground section below for a full transcript of Adam’s testimony
Alongside the deteriorating situation in El Fasher, accounts continue to emerge of atrocities committed by the RSF following its capture of the Zamzam camp, which sits around 10 miles to the city’s south.
The group took Zamzam, the largest displacement camp in Sudan and home to at least half a million people, on 13 April. Reports at the time suggested it had carried out a wave of summary executions and sexual violence, while satellite imagery from Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab showed that, between 10 April and 10 May, an area equivalent to more than 28 football pitches had been destroyed in likely arson attacks. The camp has since reportedly been turned into a military barracks and site of two howitzer cannons that are being used to shell El Fasher.
Earlier this week, the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), a women's rights group, said it had received 27 reports of rape after the RSF took the camp, of which it had verified 14. One 22-year-old woman interviewed by the group was gang-raped by RSF soldiers inside Zamzam on 23 April before managing to flee the camp.
In another case, a 24-year-old woman said she was with nine other women when they were stopped by a group of 15 RSF soldiers on the road between Zamzam and El Fasher. Three of the women were killed and the other seven were taken to an area outside the camp, where they were interrogated about their ethnic identities and marital status before being tortured and raped. Three of the women were then abducted.
In total, SIHA has received testimonies and eyewitness reports of 64 cases of the abduction and enforced disappearance of women and girls from Zamzam. On the day the camp fell, a further 11 women were abducted and their families asked to pay ransoms of 15 million Sudanese pounds ($25,000) to secure their release, according to testimonials given to the group. Two days earlier, six women were burned alive inside their home, an eyewitness reported, while another incident saw three men attacked and their genitals amputated. Two of the men later died.
SIHA also received testimony that, after the RSF entered Zamzam, inhabitants were “gathered and divided into groups based on age, gender, and ethnicity”, with those identified as Zaghawa accused of having relatives in the Joint Forces and “severely beaten”.
Interviews available on request. Names have been changed due to safety concerns.
Adam spoke to Avaaz from the city of El Fasher, with the sounds of constant shelling and bombardment clearly audible in the background.
"The situation here is extremely, extremely bad,” he said. “We face deliberate and intensive bombardment targeting civilians on a daily basis. Today, I lost my neighbor, and my own brother is wounded. Zamzam is now a military base for RSF - they drove civilians out of the camp and most of them are now either in Tawila, El Fasher city, and a very few people went to the Qoz Bina and Shangal Tobay areas.
“All the markets are now out of service. There is only one working market, Naivasha market [in the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp]. All of the merchants there had to dig a trench so they could hide when the shelling happens. We call the first round of shelling the ‘martyr shelling' because if you survive the first one, you get to hide quickly in the trenches from the other ones.
“There is a severe shortage in supplies, as El Fasher is now besieged. We used to have goods coming in regularly through vehicles, but now the only goods that enter the city come on donkeys, and they even target those people. For the entire city of El Fasher, we have no more than 10 donkeys that enter the city carrying goods per day. Even these people carrying limited supplies on their donkeys get questioned and interrogated at RSF gates - that's what we call the checkpoints here. Just the other day they went with one of them to their village to confirm that he is a local and ended up burning the village.
“What makes this even more desperate is what the North Darfur Emergency Room Council confirmed in their 28 May statement - over two million people are facing death from famine. The prices have reached impossible levels: a sack of sugar now costs 2 million Sudanese pounds ($3,330), while millet, our staple food, costs 650,000 SDG ($1,080) per sack.
“Life-saving medicines and emergency medications have completely vanished from our city. Internet connection is limited - to connect for half an hour you have to pay 1,000 SDG ($1.70). There's a cash crisis right now: 100,000 SDG on Bankak [the Bank of Khartoum app] would get you 50,000 SDG in cash, so you lose 50% of your money in the transfer.
“Those displaced from El Fasher are also suffering. All the organizations left and are now operating from Tawila. They are completely dependent on community kitchens - I volunteer in one. We used to make pasta and rice, and now there is none of that. We then used to make aseeda [a dough made with flour] and now we can't even make it with no corn or wheat, and we have to make do with what is available. Most of the people who left Zamzam are now in Abu Shouk or the El Fasher university.
“Because of my work in the community kitchen, I can say that we can't survive like this. If no goods enter the city, we might start eating tree leaves in two weeks. My words are not enough to describe how disastrous the situation is. This war is on the citizens and citizens alone - we are the victims. El Fasher is crying out as more than two million human lives hang by a thread, desperately needing the world to act before we become just a memory."
The weekly dispatch features the latest developments, first-hand testimony, footage, photos, stats, and analysis on Sudan. We can connect you with voices from the ground, experts and survivors of the war. Get in touch on +44 7514 796 678 / sudan@avaaz.org.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is building an earthen wall around El Fasher to create a “kill box” and prevent civilians fleeing the besieged city, satellite imagery suggests.
People caught trying to smuggle food into the besieged city of El Fasher are being “executed on sight” by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to one civilian.
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