‘A donkey cart out of El Fasher costs more than a new car’: how 500 days under siege is tearing the city apart | Global development

For 17 months, since May 2024, the North Darfur’s capital, El Fash, was stuck in one of the longest urban siege of the modern war, a slow wear war that remembered Stalingrad’s destruction and the hunger of Leningrad, united both grases in a single city.

Siege, gradually Bored by Fast Support Forces (RSF)He transformed the city. The trenches were cut from the neighborhoods. Civilians carry blocks by block in search of security, while the self -defense groups fight with established garrison.

During these months, El Pasher has become the war of Sudan, a microcosmum, where the old siege and hunger tactics hit new arsenal, and the drones and recently introduced weapons turned into a test area for a test area for modern war. El Past shows Sudan’s war in its most prominent form: a laboratory and purgatory.

Since the beginning of October 2024, as the fight changed and RSF progressed to the city, civilians have dug trenches where they were forced to move in neighborhoods. The words were cut on the streets, next to the houses and around the meeting areas of the families.

The shoulder depth, these trenches flood after the rain, and now the city has become the survival architecture.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (pure) intensified RSF El Fl since the Bombardment of RSF El Fl since it reinstated Khartum in April 2025. “Three in the morning or four, usually until late,” he says. “Now we know the program. Every dawn we prepare for it.” Families routinely descend to the trenches before the dark dawn, and sometimes sleep there until the bombing starts again. Mobile, long -range bombardment has become the distinctive feature of RSF, more intense every month.

The most deadly moments often come in short speed between houses and trenches. Ibrahim remembers how two neighbors were killed when they paused to greet each other on their way to their shelters – only the cavities on the ground. Amal, after being shot by Topçu, tells the story of dragging his grandfather’s body. He fell to work, the bombardment was protected next to his body until he lightened for a long time to bury him.

Mohamed finally talks about a young man who was wounded in a trench that was flooded for two weeks before he died.

Numerous accounts echo these scenes: crazy ups and underground, underground, uncertain returns above; Planned terrorism. “Fear never changes,” says hela, a young woman who escaped from the city. “If you go out, something will happen to you.”

Sometimes I mean, “I am happy to do what we do, let’s walk together ‘when I walked between the bombing and seeing someone on the street.”

Since last October, the drones brought a new fear. People now say that they are patrolling on El Fasher – Irregular and unpredictable El Past, which marked one of the first uses of the drone war in Darfur. For those on the ground, each hums carries the same fear: surveillance or kamikaze strike.

El Fasher, the oldest war tactics for 17 months: He drowned with wear and hunger. As the RSF grasp was bored, he built territorial works in the north, east and south, and the fortifications that serve as drowning scores prevented almost every way in and out. The city was cut. There is only one way to leave civilians and going to Tawila, about 60 km away.

Travelers are the risk of checkpoints, ambush and disappearance. The escape is almost impossible for men and men of martial age. They either stay and fight or take the risk of extortion or death on the road. Walking to Tawila – one day by pedestrian or donkey – a series of RSF and the allied checkpoints. “A donkey car from El Fasher now costs more expensive than a new car, Le Leila said.

An elderly man reached Tawila’s buffer region after walking from El Pash in the first week of September. More than 400,000 newly displaced He was stuck in the area in front of him. A volunteer remembers that he saw him: “He wanted water, drank and then collapsed and died in front of us.”

If it is impossible to leave, the life inside is unbearable. After 500 days of siege, the markets are shouted and the city is on the verge of famine. The remaining small food is that it cannot be achieved most. Two kilos of millets were sold for $ 100 (74 £), one kilo of sugar or flour for $ 80, while the average monthly salary was still $ 70.

Estimated 260,000 civilians remain in El PashIt relys on four common cuisine, which is mostly operated by volunteers and continues through community networks. Under the fire, the water is limited and scarce, they offer only one meal a day. Like the rest of El Pasher, the kitchens were crushed by killing volunteers. The only alternative is the last market of the city in the Naivasha region, now it is reduced to a handful of stalls where prices are prostitutes.

Orum If possible, I’m going through a meal, Omar says Omar. “But we fell into the trap during the bombing or street fighting.” Hani, who once worked with smugglers, says the city has been trusting them to bring food for a long time, but most of them are gone. “A few are still trying at night, but most of them don’t bring it back. Now suicide, a fatal gambling.”

For many families, the only food available is the residue of peanut shell used to feed livestock. Civilians with Shrapnel wounds are transported to an improvised treatment center called the block where volunteers can do with more than salt and torn cloth pieces.

Since the siege began, no official help has been received to El Pash. In a volunteer Amira, in the last semi -functional hospital in Al Saudi, volunteers are often reduced to a raw trian and decide who will live and who will die and leave to die ”. The hospital stopped accepting the wounded because of its proximity to the front. Pure soldiers and allied Darfuri fighters are usually handled in separate facilities, one shot and excluded from service in the last two weeks.

In the rest of their cities, most people are limited to the north-west corner. With the positions of pure and pure aligned Darfuri groups, they are made into three neighborhoods and a part of an IDP camp. The night falls into darkness and silence. Even solar lamps are kept away for drone fear. “You can’t even burn a cigarette,” he says, Abdallah.

In addition to its pure soldiers and Darfuri allies, the self -defense groups have multiplied, and armed men fill the streets as militarization covers every part of life. The non -verbal truth is that every talented man and the boy are seen as a potential warrior. And although the blur of the line between the civilian and warriors is not unique to El Pasher, it is not likely to be felt very clearly anywhere.

Al -Pash’s war turned into a sophisticated war with weapons that Darfur never knew from the primitive urban war. Siege is no longer just military; It has become political, even existential.

The siege continues largely due to external support. Public and private accounts point to the UAE military equipment and logistics support that brings RSF beyond its capacity. Nevertheless, El Pasher is one of the last places where the decision is still possible.