As the world watches Gaza with outrage and concern, similar tactics are being used by both sides of Sudan’s civil war, now in its third year. In order to subdue residents and gain control of new territory, both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are deliberately shutting down markets, blocking supply routes and looting aid in broad daylight. Across the regions of El Fasher, Khartoum and Kordofan, evidence of the slow violence of famine by design can be seen.
“We are feeding our children animal feed, and even that is running out,” said Niama Al-Haj, a displaced doctor in El Fasher, North Darfur. “There’s no food, no medicine and no escape. They are starving us deliberately, one day at a time.”
Since the war began in April 2023, more than 13 million people have been displaced. The only institutions able to provide some relief amid the deepening humanitarian crisis have been community grassroots organisations known as Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), which distribute food, offer shelter and deliver medical services to families around the country facing hunger, disease and water and electricity shortages. But lately, even these lifelines of food and hope have been strangled by bureaucracy and targeted with repression and violence.
The roots of the conflict go back to at least 2019, when the Sudanese people, after months of protests, ended the three-decade rule of then-president Omar al-Bashir. The people demanded civilian governance, accountability for past atrocities, and state action to address endemic poverty and inequality. A tenuous civil-military power sharing agreement was established to guide the country’s path forward, but in October 2021, the Sudanese military, under the leadership of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, orchestrated a coup d’état that dismantled the civilian-led government and overturned much of the progress. The SAF and RSF, allies during that coup, turned on each other in a contest for power.
Systematic starvation
The conflict is a battle for control over different parts of Sudan, with both sides using violence, air strikes and armed incursions, rape and blockage of food and aid as strategies. Within months of the start of the civil war, aid workers were being attacked — 19 were killed between April and August of 2023 — and aid warehouses were being looted, with the United Nations reporting large-scale looting of most of their warehouses by May.
Al-Haj, the doctor, said that the situation has become so dire that even those people with money are unable to buy food.
“Malnutrition is widespread, especially among children, and most health services have collapsed. The childhoods of El Fasher have been lost before they even began. We are watching children’s bodies waste away in front of us,” she said.
El Fasher is the only major city in Darfur that is still under SAF control, so the RSF has laid siege to it, surrounding the city and cutting off main roads that are key food and aid supply routes.
“The situation is catastrophic, and even basic medications are forbidden. We’ve faced arrests and gunfire while trying to deliver supplies. This is a deliberate strangulation of the city, a systematic campaign that endangers every life here,” Al-Haj said.
Since January, the RSF has escalated its use of artillery against the city, where daily life has come to a standstill. Last month, the Foreign Ministry accused the RSF of looting a UN World Food Program aid convoy in North Darfur just days after it was shelled near the town of Al-Kuma, on its way to El Fasher. At least five WFP staff members were killed in the attack.
Khalid Abdallah, a humanitarian volunteer, told Truthdig that volunteers and activist groups around the country have launched a national campaign called Save El Fasher, Aid El Fasher, in order to draw attention to the deepening humanitarian crisis and the prolonged military siege that has lasted for more than two years. On social media, activists are using the hashtag الفاشر_تموت_جوعا# (El Fasher is dying of hunger) and #AlFashir_is_starving, and locals talk about the “worst” wave of “systematic starvation” Sudan has experienced in decades. “We’re dying of hunger … death is besieging us,” they say.
Blockades and attacks on food and aid are also taking place in the rest of the country. “Aid convoys have been attacked, looted and blocked across multiple states, including Khartoum, Kordofan and Darfur, and these deliberate assaults on humanitarian access have pushed Sudan into one of the world’s worst hunger crises,” Abdallah said.
The Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan state are controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North. As a result, both the SAF and RSF have attacked the region and have blocked relief operations. Last year, the IPC Famine Review Committee formally declared a famine in the region.
According to the World Food Program, 24.6 million people in Sudan are facing acute hunger, and 2 million people are facing famine or at risk of famine.
“Tens of thousands more will die in Sudan during a third year of war unless we have the access and resources to reach those in need,” Shaun Hugues, the U.N. WFP regional emergency coordinator, said at a press conference in April. He stressed the need for immediate action to prevent widespread starvation. Months later, that action hasn’t materialized, and the international community remains largely silent.
Attacks on grassroots aid efforts
Sudanese humanitarian volunteers that have played a crucial role during the conflict are now facing violent attacks and bureaucratic obstacles for their efforts. ERR volunteers are now being targeted, detained and killed while offering aid.
In May, a few months after the SAF drove the RSF out of Khartoum and announced victory in the capital, the city government issued a decree placing the ERRs under the authority of the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), an organisation closely connected to Sudan’s Islamist networks. The measure effectively criminalized ERRs that remained independent.
“Usually, Emergency Response Rooms focus on the core principles of humanitarian aid and the needs of local communities rather than political agendas,” Muzan Ali, an ERR volunteer in Khartoum, told Truthdig. However, such a focus risks highlighting governmental shortcomings or neglect, so the ERRs can be perceived as challenging the government’s authority and as spaces that foster community empowerment beyond state influence, Ali explains.
“The government under military control and the [HAC] resist the existence of ERRs and any possible connections they may have with foreign supporters — a position that has deep roots in Omar al-Bashir’s long-standing dictatorship,” she said.
Now, many of the communal kitchens have stopped offering daily meals because donations aren’t reaching the HAC, Ali said, and the registration procedures for the ERRs and volunteers are overly bureaucratic. She said her ERR has sent three volunteers to start the registration process, but the HAC “is procrastinating and asking us to wait longer. However, hungry people cannot afford to wait.”
The ERRs could also be seen as a threat because of their roots in the uprising against al-Bashir. They then brought together youth from resistance committees, civil society organisations, skilled professionals, doctors, and water and electricity engineers.
“We started mobilising large youth networks that had been built after the December Revolution (2018) and during the COVID-19 response,” Mohamed Satti, a member of the Khartoum State Emergency Room, told Truthdig. While these networks began with limited goals, “after the outbreak of war, we expanded their scope to meet the growing needs of this crisis”.
“We designed a simple, functional structure to avoid bureaucracy and get things done,” Satti said, lamenting how the current government is now obstructing that.
Women in particular have played a crucial role in the ERRs, in both mixed and women-led groups. Nour Mahadi, a member of a women’s ERR, said their main motivation was finding a way to survive amid the devastation of war.
“From the first month of the conflict, the East Nile Khartoum Women’s Emergency Room was established under extremely difficult conditions in an area controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. Women’s ERRs provide various services, such as supporting soup kitchens, safe spaces for women and children, and basic health care for the sick and wounded,” she said.
These women-led spaces also aim to document and respond to gender-based violence in conflict zones, thereby raising awareness of sexual violence during war, for civilians as well as women volunteers operating in besieged areas. The movement represents hope, driven by Sudanese women who are actively defending themselves, even as their own rights are under attack.
Many volunteers have been killed, arrested or are facing starvation inflicted by the RSF, Satti said. Since the conflict began, the ERRs have been repeatedly attacked by the government’s SAF as well. “In 2023, authorities forcibly shut down an ERR in East Sudan, and it has never been reopened,” said Ali.
“In other areas, like Kordofan state, several ERR volunteers were arrested by military intelligence and faced intimidation simply for trying to deliver aid and coordinate relief efforts,” she said.
Most recently, an East Nile ERR volunteer (name withheld due to safety concerns) told Truthdig they were detained in Khartoum while traveling to Al-Jazirah to support humanitarian work, marking yet another attempt to stifle grassroots aid initiatives.
Even in Omdurman, the second-biggest city in Sudan and located in Khartoum state, people are facing extreme food shortages. “Our community kitchens are a lifeline for most people here, but we lack the resources to meet the needs of every family. Food prices are extremely high, and constant threats from indiscriminate shelling make it even harder to operate safely,” Alaa, an ERR volunteer in Omdurman, told Truthdig. Only her first name has been used due to fear of reprisal.
“It’s almost impossible to carry out any humanitarian activity in Khartoum (state) without going through security procedures. Even simple tasks like supplying drinking water or handing out food kits need official permission [from local government authorities],” she said.
Other ways food and aid access is being deliberately limited
The attacks on food access go beyond the road blocks and repression of volunteers. Ongoing strikes and shelling during the years of conflict have destroyed a lot of infrastructure, including bridges, roads, transport, hospitals and water stations. Agriculture is also facing significant challenges to recover after the RSF has looted crops, livestock and equipment, and burned farmland. With markets and agriculture affected, food access has been crippled at both distribution and supply levels.
In Khartoum, the RSF are also systematically looting humanitarian supplies. Just one example of this occurred in March at Al Bashair Hospital, one of the last operational medical centers in the capital. RSF fighters reportedly raided the facility and stole large quantities of supplies. UNICEF condemned the attack, warning that it put thousands of children and mothers in immediate danger. Among the looted items were 2,200 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food that is critical for children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The RSF also seized iron and folic acid supplements for pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as midwife kits and basic health care supplies intended for maternal and child care.
“These supplies were not merely stolen; they were violently removed from a population already facing extreme deprivation,” said Abdallah, stressing that aid convoys and humanitarian operations are regularly attacked.
“By targeting health care infrastructure and obstructing humanitarian aid, the RSF is not just violating international law; it is waging a calculated campaign of deprivation against the Sudanese people,” he said.
[Reprinted from truthdig.com.]