Thousands more displaced by fighting in Sudan’s El Fasher, IOM says
May 1, 2025 (EL FASHER) – Renewed fighting in El Fasher, the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in Darfur, has displaced over 1,000 more families in recent days, the U.N. migration agency IOM said on Thursday, adding to a worsening humanitarian crisis in the region.
Clashes and artillery shelling hit El Fasher on Thursday as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified attempts, ongoing since May 2024, to seize the city, the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the vast western Darfur region.
Between April 27 and 30, 1,184 families were displaced from El Fasher and the nearby Abu Shouk camp for displaced people due to worsening insecurity, the IOM said in a statement seen by Sudan Tribune newspaper.
Some families fled to other locations within the El Fasher locality, while others went to Tawila, about 70 km (43 miles) away, the IOM said.
The latest displacement follows the flight of 81,000 families (around 406,000 people) from Zamzam camp, 12 km (7.5 miles) southwest of El Fasher, reported by the IOM on April 27. They represented 81% of the camp’s registered displaced population as of March 12.
RSF fighters seized Zamzam on April 14 after three days of clashes. The capture allowed the RSF to tighten its siege on El Fasher, imposed since April 2024, forcing the 81,000 families to flee the camp.
The siege has caused severe medicine shortages in El Fasher amid rising civilian casualties. Most health centres have shut down after being shelled or occupied, leaving many injured people resorting to basic wound dressing techniques, residents and aid groups say.
The flight from Zamzam pushed the number of people displaced within North Darfur in the past year to over 1 million. Fighting across the state displaced 605,000 people between April 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Thursday the civilian death toll in North Darfur reached 542 in the past three weeks, after 40 people were killed in recent days during coordinated RSF attacks on El Fasher.