By Carles Grau Sivera
Cairo (EFE).- Save the Children warned Monday that civilians in Al-Fashir, recently captured by paramilitary forces, cannot survive much longer without urgent humanitarian aid.
The aid group cited severe security, logistical, and bureaucratic barriers preventing relief from reaching some 260,000 civilians trapped in the city.
“They really don’t have much time. We are already talking about possible famine conditions for the entire population of Al-Fashir,” said Francesco Lanino, Save the Children’s Deputy Director of Programs and Operations in Sudan, in an interview with EFE.
Starvation risk looms over displaced families
After the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized Al-Fashir last week, ending an 18-month siege, tens of thousands fled to Tawila, about 60 kilometers (37.3 miles) west of the city. But the situation there is also desperate, Lanino said.
Tawila, where Save the Children continues to operate, now shelters 37% of all displaced people in North Darfur and 7% of Sudan’s total displaced population, according to the United Nations.
This means over 650,000 people are living in difficult conditions, waiting for aid that arrives incrementally.
“Children and women are already dying from malnutrition,” Lanino warned. “The situation could worsen in the coming weeks or months, with many more deaths if food remains inaccessible.”
The RSF’s capture of Al-Fashir, the army’s last major stronghold in Darfur, left devastation behind. The Sudanese government says more than 2,000 people were killed, while aid groups have described the violence as “ethnic cleansing.”
‘Road of death’ blocks humanitarian access
Humanitarian access to the area remains virtually impossible, Lanino said.
“We can’t verify what’s happening, deliver food, or provide medical care to those in need,” he noted, adding that aid workers themselves have become victims, dozens killed since the conflict began over two years ago.
One of Save the Children’s greatest concerns is the stretch connecting Al-Fashir and Tawila, known locally as the “road of death.”
Lanino described it as “a no man’s land full of militias and armed groups literally killing anyone trying to escape Al-Fashir.”
Those who reach Tawila recount “brutal scenes of violence,” including sexual assaults against women and children and targeted killings of members of specific ethnic communities, he said.
Bureaucratic and security barriers stall aid
Both the RSF and the Sudanese army have imposed bureaucratic obstacles that make it nearly impossible for NGOs to deliver food, hygiene products, and medicines to vulnerable areas, even through cross-border operations.
“There are many delays and many difficulties,” Lanino said.
For now, Save the Children can still move limited supplies through the Chad–Darfur border, despite numerous checkpoints and what Lanino described as “extremely dangerous” conditions for truck drivers and aid staff.
Fortunately, the organization had already dispatched trucks before Al-Fashir’s fall, allowing some supplies to reach Tawila.
Without that, Lanino said, “it would have been impossible to respond in any way to this new humanitarian catastrophe.”
“In a country at war like Sudan, you never know when humanitarian aid will arrive,” he concluded. “It could be weeks, months, or never.” EFE
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