The city of El Fasher, capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan, is facing an increasingly perilous humanitarian situation, with large numbers of civilians still trapped inside the city and almost completely cut off from the outside world, according to the United Nations.
At a press conference in New York, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, said that civilians “are unable to leave El Fasher,” noting that hundreds have already been killed, among them humanitarian workers.
The United Nations has called for immediate and unhindered access for humanitarian aid to reach civilians stranded in the city, stressing that the continued obstruction of relief delivery by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is “unacceptable.”
In a new and tragic development, the Sudanese Doctors’ Network – an independent civil organisation – announced on Monday evening that seven people were killed after the RSF bombed a children’s hospital in the Kornoi area of North Darfur. Among the dead were women and children.
The network said in its statement that the attack also left five others seriously wounded, including two children who were receiving treatment inside the hospital at the moment of the strike.
It described the incident as “a full-fledged war crime,” asserting that the targeting of a children’s hospital represents yet another face of systematic terror directed against innocent civilians.
Targeting medical facilities, particularly those dedicated to children, constitutes a flagrant violation of the principles of international humanitarian law, which explicitly prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure and medical personnel. The besieging of cities and the obstruction of humanitarian supplies are also grave breaches of human rights, placing thousands of lives at risk, especially those of women, children, and the elderly.
What is unfolding in El Fasher today reflects a recurring pattern of systematic violence against civilian populations in Sudan’s conflict zones, where hospitals, schools, and camps have become direct or collateral targets in the ongoing war between the Sudanese army and the RSF since April 2023; a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over 13 million people within Sudan and beyond.
The worsening situation in El Fasher underscores an urgent need for effective international intervention to halt these violations, ensure the protection of civilians, and activate mechanisms of legal accountability for the crimes committed against them. Continued international silence and inaction by concerned parties risk further humanitarian and moral collapse in Darfur, leaving civilians to pay a devastating price for a war they had no part in igniting.
