Food runs out in Sudan’s El Fasher as RSF completes siege, traders say
October 14, 2025 (EL FASHER) – Food supplies have run out in the besieged El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur, traders said on Tuesday, after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) completed its encirclement of the city with earthen barriers, raising fears of starvation for those trapped.
The Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University previously published satellite imagery showing the completion of a 57-km (35-mile) long earthen barrier built by the RSF around El Fasher, reinforcing its control over exit points.
“Food commodities have completely disappeared, including from retail shops,” traders inside the city told Sudan Tribune. They added that the lack of goods has forced community kitchens to stop providing food to displaced people in shelter centres.
The RSF has intensified its shelling of the Al-Daraja Al-Oula neighbourhood, one of the few areas still inhabited by tens of thousands of besieged civilians, after making significant ground advances since August.
RSF fighters have carried out raids on houses in recently captured neighbourhoods, burning some down, while also committing field executions, extortion, and sexual assaults against those fleeing the city, residents and activists have said.
Military sources indicated to Sudan Tribune that the food shortages were caused by a halt in smuggling after the completion of the earthen ramparts. They noted that before the siege was complete, various groups, including some RSF elements, had smuggled goods like rice into the city at exorbitant prices.
The sources said the RSF used heavy machinery to dig a trench around the city, tightening the land siege it has imposed since April 2024.
The El Fasher Resistance Committees, a local activist group, confirmed the depletion of food supplies, noting the absence of alternatives, including “ambaz” — the paste made from peanut and sesame residue after oil extraction.
The city’s trapped population of 260,000, including 130,000 children according to the United Nations, had been relying on “ambaz,” which is typically used as animal feed, to survive.
In a statement, the committee said El Fasher is now besieged from all directions “without any genuine international action, airdrops of aid, or a ground move to break the siege.”
“Time is passing, hunger is increasing, and death is reaping souls,” the statement read. “We have moved beyond the stage of complaint to the stage of slow annihilation.”
“We cry for help, but no one answers. It seems we will watch, as the world around us does. We see our city being erased, and we die resisting, because we have nothing left but resistance and a collective death.”
The RSF has been trying since May 11 to capture El Fasher, which is defended by the army and its allies and is the last stronghold of government authority in the Darfur region.