'It is truly monstrous': Inside the besieged Sudanese city where families are forced to eat animal feed to live
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has held the capital of North Darfur hostage in a 14-month siege - blocking food or fuel from entering the locality and forcing starvation on its 900,000 inhabitants.
The entire city is currently a militarised zone as Sudan 's army and the Darfur Joint Protection Force fend off the RSF from capturing the last state capital in the Darfur region not currently under their control.
Rare footage sent to Sky News from inside al Fashir town shows streets emptied of cars and people.
The city's remaining residents are hiding from daytime shelling inside their homes, and volunteers move through town on donkey carts distributing the little food they can find.
'It is truly monstrous'
Journalist Muammer Ibrahim sent Sky News voice notes from there.
"The situation is monstrous," he says. "It is truly monstrous.
"The markets are emptied of food and partially destroyed by shelling. Civilians were killed at the market, just a day ago. People have fled market areas but there is also shelling in residential areas. Every day, you hear of 10 or 12 civilians killed in attacks."
His voice sounds shallow, weakened by the dire conditions, and gunshots can be heard in the background.
"The intense fighting has meant that people cannot safely search for anything to eat, but there is also nothing for their money to buy. The markets are depleted. Hundreds of thousands here are threatened by a full-blown famine," he says.
"There has been a full blockade of any nutritional supplies arriving in al Fashir since the collapse of Zamzam camp. It closed any routes for produce or supplies to enter."
The RSF ransacked the famine-ridden Zamzam displacement camp 7.5 miles (12km) south of al Fashir town in April, after the military reclaimed Sudan's capital Khartoum.
The United Nations believes that at least 100 people were killed in the attacks, including children and aid workers.
The majority of Zamzam's half a million residents fled to other areas for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them are now squeezed into tents on the edges of al Fashir, completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
The capture of the camp allowed the RSF to tighten their siege and block off the last remaining supply route. Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year.
"Already, between June and October 2024, we had several trucks stuck and prevented by the Rapid Support Forces from going to their destination which was al Fashir and Zamzam," says Mathilde Simon, project coordinator at Medicins Sans Frontieres.
"They were prevented from doing so because they were taking food to those destinations."
"There was another UN convoy that tried to reach al Fashir in the beginning of June. It could not, and five aid workers were killed.
"Since then, no convoy has been able to reach al Fashir. There have been ongoing negotiations to bring in food but they have not been successful until now."
Families are resorting to eating animal feed to survive.
Videos sent to Sky News by volunteers show extreme suffering and deprivation, with sickly children sitting on thin straw mats on the hard ground.
Community kitchens are their only source of survival, only able to offer small meals of sorghum porridge to hundreds of thousands of elderly men, women and children facing starvation.
The question now is whether famine has fully taken root in al Fashir after the collapse of Zamzam camp and intensified RSF siege.
'Malnutrition rates are catastrophic'
"The lack of access has prevented us from carrying out further assessment that can help us have a better understanding of the situation, but already in December 2024 famine was confirmed by the IPC Famine Review Committee in five areas," says Mathilde.
"It was already confirmed in August 2024 in Zamzam but had spread to other displacement camps including Abu Shouk and it was already projected in al Fashir.
"This was more than eight months ago and we know the situation has completely worsened and malnutrition rates are absolutely catastrophic."
Treasurer of al Fashir's Emergency Response Rooms, Mohamed al Doma, believes all signs point to a famine.
He had to walk for four hours to escape the city with his wife and two young children after living through a full year of the siege and offering support to residents as supplies and funding dwindled.
"There is a famine of the first degree in al Fashir. All the basic necessities for life are not available," he says.
"There is a lack of sustenance, a lack of nutrition and a lack of shelter. The fundamental conditions for human living are not living. There is nothing available in the markets - no food or work. There is no farming for subsistence. There is no aid entering al Fashir."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Gaza latest: Hamas sets condition for getting aid to hostages after 'appalling' video sparks international outcry
08:24:02 US ambassador claims 'massive amounts of food' going into Gaza US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said that the "real story of starvation in Gaza" is of "hostages being held by Hamas". In a disputed claim on X, the US ambassador questioned why the "massive amounts of food" going into Gaza was not being shared by the "very well fed" Hamas members. He shared a graphic that stated "there is no policy of starvation in Gaza," and that "Israel does not limit the amount of aid entering Gaza" and has, in the past, facilitated the entry of up to 700 aid trucks per day, depending on UN and NGO supply. It should be noted here that humanitarian organisations have said the amount of aid that has entered the enclave is not enough. Some have said the hunger crisis in Gaza worsened in March after Israel imposed a blockade barring the entry of aid into Gaza - this came during its ceasefire with Hamas. In May, Israel lifted the blockade, but for months, only a limited amount of aid has been entering the enclave. 07:55:57 Trump insists 'we want the people fed' in Gaza As he touched down in Pennsylvania yesterday after a weekend break, Donald Trump spoke to reporters about Gaza and its food crisis. Asked if he had an update on Gaza, the US president said: "Only we want the people fed. And we're the only country that's really doing that. "We're putting up money to get the people fed." Trump said he wanted Israel "to get them fed" and the US was "giving some pretty big contributions" to purchase food. Last week US special envoy Steve Witkoff visited a food distribution site in the Gaza Strip operated by an Israeli-backed American contractor. Witkoff and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, which has been almost completely destroyed and is now a largely depopulated Israeli military zone. The envoy said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza in order to gain "a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza". 07:48:14 Hamas 'ready to deliver aid to hostages' if Israel opens humanitarian corridors As we just reported Hamas has said it is ready to deliver Red Cross aid to the hostages it is holding in Gaza if Israel opens humanitarian corridors permanently and halts "all forms of air traffic" during the delivery of packages to the hostages. Abu Obeidah, the military spokesman for the Al-Qassam brigades - an armed wing of Hamas- said yesterday the militant group "do not deliberately starve the captives" and "they eat from what our fighters and all our people eat". He said in order to respond to any request from the Red Cross to bring food and medicine to hostages humanitarian corridors would need to be opened "in a normal and permanent manner". Obeidah also said the group required "the cessation of enemy aerial sorties of all kinds during the times when the parcels for the captives are being received". "The Al-Qassam brigades do not deliberately starve the captives, but they eat from what our fighters and all our people eat, and they will not receive any special privileges amid the crime of starvation and siege," he said in a statement. Prior to the statement, Benjamin Netanyahu said he had spoken with the Red Cross's regional head, Julien Lerisson, and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza. Netanyahu said he told Lerisson that the "lie of starvation propagated by Hamas is spreading worldwide", adding that "systematic starvation" is being carried out against Israeli hostages. 07:39:49 Welcome back to our coverage We're back with our coverage of the war in Gaza this morning. Yesterday, Hamas said it was ready to cooperate with any requests from the Red Cross to deliver food to Israeli hostages in Gaza. It came after Benjamin Netanyahu accused the militant group of carrying out "systematic starvation" against Israeli captives after Hamas released a video of an emaciated hostage being held in a concrete tunnel. Netanyahu said he had spoken with the regional head of the Red Cross and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza. Here are the other key lines from the last 24 hours: Hospitals in Gaza said 33 more Palestinians seeking food aid were killed by Israeli fire; The United Nations Security Council said it will hold a special discussion on the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Tuesday morning; Efforts to bring Gazan children to the UK for urgent medical treatment are set to be accelerated under new UK government plans. The scheme is reportedly set to be announced within weeks. You can read more on that story here... 22:50:01 We're pausing our live coverage Thanks for following our live coverage of the war in Gaza. We'll be back tomorrow with all the latest updates, but until then, here's a rundown of the key stories from the last 24 hours: Hamas says it'll allow the Red Cross to bring aid to Israeli hostages in Gaza if Israel permanently opens up humanitarian corridors in the enclave; It comes after Benjamin Netanyahu urged the Red Cross to deliver aid to hostage s after seeing videos of emaciated hostages over the weekend; Those videos drew sharp international condemnation, including from France's Emmanuel Macron, David Lammy and others; Meanwhile, deliveries of aid continued to be airdropped into Gaza. Israel's military said 136 packages were parachuted in by six different countries today; But, on the ground, hospital officials said at least 33 more Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire while seeking foo d in Gaza; And the Hamas-run health ministry said six adults had died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours; Elsewhere, Israel's far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, drew criticism from Arab nations for violating a decades-old arrangement by praying at a holy site in Jerusalem; While the IDF says it's looking into reports that an Israeli attack on the Gaza HQ of the Palestinian Red Crescent killed one staff member and injured others. 22:40:01 Hamas official: October 7 attacks 'forced the world' into recognising Palestinian statehood A senior member of Hamas's political bureau says the wave of Western nations moving to recognise a Palestinian state is the "overall outcome" of the group's October 7 terror attack on Israel. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ghazi Hamad said the deadly attack, which saw Hamas and other militant groups kill over 1,200 people and take hostages back to Gaza, "forced the world to open its eyes to the Palestinian cause". He added: "Why are all these countries recognising Palestine now? Had any country dared to recognise the state of Palestine prior to October 7?" France, the UK and Canada have all recently announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly next month. The Israeli government has rejected the calls, describing them as tantamount to rewarding terrorism. 22:15:01 Watch: Doctor describes 'carnage' at Gaza hospital Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Waseem Saeed had told Sky News that the plans to bring injured Gaza children to the UK for treatment are a "mere drop in the ocean". Under the scheme, reportedly set to be announced within weeks, up to 300 children could arrive in the UK from Gaza. Dr Saeed says he's received updates from doctors at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza showing children with burn injuries left on the floor as "they've completely run out of beds". He says "every part" of the medical infrastructure in Gaza has been "dismantled and is deficient". "Until that's addressed, while this is welcome, it's not going to have a serious impact on the carnage that is occurring at the moment." 21:45:01 Exclusive: Gaza's deadliest days linked by a pattern of attacks on families Data shared exclusively with Sky News by Gaza's health ministry allows us, for the first time, to show the date of every death since the war began. Across almost two years of war, 17 days stand out as the deadliest – those when more than 450 people died. Women and children made up a much higher share of deaths on these days than on others. Looking further into the data, we found out why – a pattern of strikes on family homes. Almost half of all people killed on these days (44%) died alongside a family member, compared with less than a third (30%) on other days. Strikes on families reached their peak on 18 March, accounting for almost two-thirds of all deaths. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas, but most of those killed were women and children. In order to understand how those strikes led to so many civilian casualties, Sky News analysed all 465 deaths recorded that day by Gaza's health ministry. 21:15:02 Arab world condemns Israeli 'desecration' at Jerusalem mosque Iran has joined Jordan and Saudi Arabia in its outrage after Israel's far-right security minister violated a long-standing agreement by praying at one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Itamar Ben-Gvir conducted a Jewish prayer at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem this morning, breaking a long-time arrangement between Israel and the Arab world. Jews are forbidden from prayer at the east Jerusalem site under a "status quo" agreement made between Israel and Jordan in 1967. Jordan condemned Ben-Gvir's prayer as "an unacceptable provocation, and a reprehensible escalation". This evening, Iran's foreign ministry says Ben-Gvir "desecrated" the holy site, claiming the far-right Israeli minister was seeking to "alter the Islamic and historical identity of Holy Jerusalem" and escalate tensions in Gaza. 20:38:35 UN Security Council to hold special session on Israeli hostages still in Gaza The United Nations Security Council will hold a special discussion on the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Tuesday morning. It follows a request by Israel's foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar, according to his office. Sa'ar pushed for the discussion after videos of hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski appearing emaciated were released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There are 50 hostages still believed to be in Gaza, of whom Israeli believes 27 are dead. Benjamin Netanyahu has said there are "doubts" about the fate of several more.
Sky News
6 hours ago
- Sky News
'It is truly monstrous': Inside the besieged Sudanese city where families are forced to eat animal feed to live
Al Fashir is being suffocated to death. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has held the capital of North Darfur hostage in a 14-month siege - blocking food or fuel from entering the locality and forcing starvation on its 900,000 inhabitants. The entire city is currently a militarised zone as Sudan 's army and the Darfur Joint Protection Force fend off the RSF from capturing the last state capital in the Darfur region not currently under their control. Rare footage sent to Sky News from inside al Fashir town shows streets emptied of cars and people. The city's remaining residents are hiding from daytime shelling inside their homes, and volunteers move through town on donkey carts distributing the little food they can find. 'It is truly monstrous' Journalist Muammer Ibrahim sent Sky News voice notes from there. "The situation is monstrous," he says. "It is truly monstrous. "The markets are emptied of food and partially destroyed by shelling. Civilians were killed at the market, just a day ago. People have fled market areas but there is also shelling in residential areas. Every day, you hear of 10 or 12 civilians killed in attacks." His voice sounds shallow, weakened by the dire conditions, and gunshots can be heard in the background. "The intense fighting has meant that people cannot safely search for anything to eat, but there is also nothing for their money to buy. The markets are depleted. Hundreds of thousands here are threatened by a full-blown famine," he says. "There has been a full blockade of any nutritional supplies arriving in al Fashir since the collapse of Zamzam camp. It closed any routes for produce or supplies to enter." The RSF ransacked the famine-ridden Zamzam displacement camp 7.5 miles (12km) south of al Fashir town in April, after the military reclaimed Sudan's capital Khartoum. The United Nations believes that at least 100 people were killed in the attacks, including children and aid workers. The majority of Zamzam's half a million residents fled to other areas for safety. Hundreds of thousands of them are now squeezed into tents on the edges of al Fashir, completely cut off from humanitarian assistance. The capture of the camp allowed the RSF to tighten their siege and block off the last remaining supply route. Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year. "Already, between June and October 2024, we had several trucks stuck and prevented by the Rapid Support Forces from going to their destination which was al Fashir and Zamzam," says Mathilde Simon, project coordinator at Medicins Sans Frontieres. "They were prevented from doing so because they were taking food to those destinations." "There was another UN convoy that tried to reach al Fashir in the beginning of June. It could not, and five aid workers were killed. "Since then, no convoy has been able to reach al Fashir. There have been ongoing negotiations to bring in food but they have not been successful until now." Families are resorting to eating animal feed to survive. Videos sent to Sky News by volunteers show extreme suffering and deprivation, with sickly children sitting on thin straw mats on the hard ground. Community kitchens are their only source of survival, only able to offer small meals of sorghum porridge to hundreds of thousands of elderly men, women and children facing starvation. The question now is whether famine has fully taken root in al Fashir after the collapse of Zamzam camp and intensified RSF siege. 'Malnutrition rates are catastrophic' "The lack of access has prevented us from carrying out further assessment that can help us have a better understanding of the situation, but already in December 2024 famine was confirmed by the IPC Famine Review Committee in five areas," says Mathilde. "It was already confirmed in August 2024 in Zamzam but had spread to other displacement camps including Abu Shouk and it was already projected in al Fashir. "This was more than eight months ago and we know the situation has completely worsened and malnutrition rates are absolutely catastrophic." Treasurer of al Fashir's Emergency Response Rooms, Mohamed al Doma, believes all signs point to a famine. He had to walk for four hours to escape the city with his wife and two young children after living through a full year of the siege and offering support to residents as supplies and funding dwindled. "There is a famine of the first degree in al Fashir. All the basic necessities for life are not available," he says. "There is a lack of sustenance, a lack of nutrition and a lack of shelter. The fundamental conditions for human living are not living. There is nothing available in the markets - no food or work. There is no farming for subsistence. There is no aid entering al Fashir."
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
I saw many atrocities as a senior aid official in Gaza. Now Israeli authorities are trying to silence us
Gaza has been held under water for 22 months, allowed to gasp for air only when Israeli authorities have succumbed to political pressure from those with more leverage than international law itself. After months of relentless bombardment, forced displacement and deprivation, the impact of Israel's collective punishment of Gaza's people has never been more devastating. I have been part of coordinating humanitarian efforts in Gaza since October 2023. Whatever lifesaving aid has entered since then has been the exception, not the rule. More than a year after the international court of justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to 'take all measures within its power' to prevent acts of genocide – and despite all our warnings – we are still witnessing starvation, insufficient access to water, a sanitation crisis and a crumbling health system against a backdrop of ongoing violence that is resulting in scores of Palestinians being killed daily, including children. Powerless to change this, we humanitarians have resorted to using our voices – alongside those of Palestinian journalists who risk everything – to describe the appalling, inhuman conditions in Gaza. Speaking out, as I'm doing now, in the face of deliberate, preventable suffering is part of our role to promote respect for international law. But doing so comes at a price. After I held a press briefing in Gaza on 22 June in which I described how starving civilians were being shot while trying to reach food – what I called 'conditions created to kill' – the Israeli minister of foreign affairs announced in a post on X that my visa would not been renewed. The Israeli permanent representative to the UN followed up at the security council announcing that I would be expected to leave by 29 July. This silencing is part of a broader pattern. International NGOs face increasingly restrictive registration requirements, including clauses that prohibit certain criticism of Israel. Palestinian NGOs that, against the odds, continue to save lives daily are cut off from the resources they need to operate. UN agencies are increasingly being issued only six, three or one-month visas based on whether they are considered 'good, bad or ugly'. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unwra) has been targeted through legislation, its international staff barred from entry and its operations slowly suffocated. These reprisals cannot erase the reality we've witnessed – day in, day out – not just in Gaza but in the West Bank too. What I have observed there looks different from what is unfolding in Gaza, but there is a unified purpose: severing territorial continuity and forcing Palestinians into ever-shrinking enclaves. Palestinians in the West Bank are daily being coerced and contained: coerced by settler violence and demolitions out of areas where settlements are expanding and contained by a network of movement restrictions into disconnected built-up areas where there are increasing military operations. Gaza is also being fragmented. Its 2.1 million people are now being crammed into just 12% of the land area of the Strip. I remember receiving the chilling call on 13 October 2023 announcing the forced displacement of the entirety of northern Gaza. Since that brutal opening act, almost all of Gaza has been forcibly displaced – not once but repeatedly – without sufficient shelter, food or safety. I have seen first-hand what appears to be the systematic dismantling of the means to sustain Palestinian life. As part of our role to coordinate humanitarian operations, my colleagues and I have helped carry patients out of dark, cat-infested ICU wards in destroyed hospitals overtaken by Israeli forces where the dead were being buried in the courtyard by the last remaining sleep-deprived staff who had witnessed their colleagues being marched away. We helped uncover mass graves in other hospital courtyards where families searched through scattered clothes trying to identify loved ones who had been stripped before being killed or disappeared. We have argued with soldiers who were trying to forcibly remove a screaming spinal cord injury patient from an ambulance while being evacuated from a hospital. We have repatriated the bodies of humanitarian workers killed by drone strikes and tank fire while trying to deliver aid, and collected the bodies of family members of NGO workers who were killed in sites acknowledged by Israeli forces as 'humanitarian' locations. We have seen medics in their uniforms killed and buried under ambulances crushed by Israeli forces. Overcrowded shelters for displaced people bombed, with parents clutching their injured or dead children. Countless bodies in the streets being eaten by dogs. People calling from beneath rubble, with help from first responders denied until no one was left breathing. Children wasting away from malnutrition while aid navigates an insurmountable obstacle course of obstructionism. Israeli authorities accuse us of being the problem. They say we are failing to collect goods from the crossings. We aren't failing, we are being obstructed. Just last week I was on a convoy headed to Kerem Shalom crossing from inside Gaza. We escorted empty trucks through a densely crowded area, an unnecessarily complicated route provided by Israeli forces. When the trucks were lined up at a holding point and the green light to move to the crossing finally came from Israeli forces, thousands of desperate people moved with us, hoping the trucks would return with food. As we crawled forward, people clung to the vehicles until we saw the first dead body on the side of the road, shot in the back from the direction of Israeli forces. At the crossing, the gate was shut. We waited around two hours for a soldier to open it. That convoy took 15 hours to complete. With other convoys, Israeli forces have delayed returning trucks while crowds gather and killed desperate people who were waiting for the trucks to arrive. Some of our goods have been looted by armed gangs operating under the watch of Israeli forces. During the ceasefire, we ran multiple convoys a day. Now chaos, killing and obstruction are again the norm. Aid is vital, but it will never be a cure for engineered scarcity. The ICJ has been clear. In its binding provisional measures, it not only ordered Israel to prevent acts prohibited under the genocide convention, it also ordered Israel to enable urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including by increasing aid crossings. In a separate advisory opinion, the ICJ left no room for doubt: Israel's ongoing occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful under international law. Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are different parts of the same picture. What is unfolding is not complicated. It is not inevitable. It is the result of deliberate political choices by those who create these conditions and those who enable them. The end of the occupation is long overdue. The credibility of the multilateral system is being weakened by double standards and impunity. International law cannot be a tool of convenience for some if it is to be a viable tool of protection for all. Gaza is already drowning beneath bombs, starvation and the relentless grip of the blockade on essentials for survival. Every delay in enforcing the most basic rules meant to protect human life is another hand pressing Gaza down as it struggles for breath. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
