Shelling, hunger, humiliation: Escaping residents describe siege of Sudan's al-Fashir

Displaced Sudanese girls from al-Fashir play at a camp in Al Dabba as the conflict deepens in Al Dabba, Sudan on September 6, 2025. 

Photo credit: Reuters

As the siege by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) tightens around al-Fashir, the few able to pay to escape describe living under constant shelling and negotiating violence at checkpoints to get out of a city where people have resorted to eating animal feed.

Last week, a UN fact-finding mission found that the RSF had committed crimes against humanity in al-Fashir, the final holdout of the Sudanese army in the Darfur region of western Sudan.