The United Nations Food Bureau warned that families trapped in the surrounded Sudanese city of El-Fasher Face Starvation.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it could not deliver food to cities in the western Darfur region over the road for more than a year.
El -Fasher was surrounded by paramilitary fighters from the Rapid Support Force (RSF) for nearly 16 months, determined to capture it from the Sudanese army.
WFP warned that local militants have begun reporting deaths from starvation in the city, which remains home to about 300,000 people.
Sudan fell into a civil war in April 2023 after a vicious power struggle between the Army and former ally RSF – creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) also issued a statement saying malnutrition is prevalent nationwide and many children are “reduced to skin and bones.”
The WFP warning responded to recent calls for urgent support to North Darfur Governor Al-Hafiz Bakhit, who said El-Fasher’s living conditions were already unbearable.
Bakht is in line with the Sudanese military-led government, which attempts to retain control of the city, which is the last foothold in Darfur.
RSF’s battle to capture El-Fasher from Sudanese army Intensified in recent monthsafter paramilitary personnel were driven out of the capital Khartoum.
United Nations statistics from the United Nations in early July showed that children under the age of five were internally displaced and those near El-Fasher suffered acute malnutrition.
WFP said severe food shortages have made El-Fasher scarce supplies huge, citing reports that people are eating animal feed and food waste to survive.
The agency did not name the parties responsible – but the RSF cuts trade routes and blocks supply lines to the city.
“Everyone at El-Fasher faces a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Perdison, the U.S. Commission’s regional director for East and Southern Africa.
He added: “People’s response mechanisms have been completely exhausted by more than two years of war. Life is lost without immediate and continuous visits.”
The agency quoted an eight-year-old girl, Sondos, who fled the city with five family members.
“In El-Fasher, there are a lot of shelling and hunger. There are only hunger and bombs,” the girl said, adding that the family only survives on millet.
The committee said its truck was filled with food and nutrition assistance and received permission from the Sudanese government to continue to go to El-Fasher.
It is still waiting for the RSF message whether it will support the battle to allow cargo to enter the city.
The United Nations has been pushing for a week-long humanitarian truce since early June when a UN convoy was attacked on its way to El-Fasher – the Army and the RSF blame each other for strikes.
The Sudanese National News Agency reported that the country’s de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had agreed to a temporary ceasefire.
RSF did not respond formally. However, the report from RSF adviser said the group rejected the plan because it believed the truce would be used to promote the provision of food and ammunition for the “Burhan surrounded militia” within the El-Fasher.
They also claimed that the RSF and its allies were building a “safe route” to get civilians out of the city.
Last month, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said more than one million people have fled El-Fasher since the beginning of the conflict. Including nearby Zamzam camps caught by RSF in April.
The BBC heard their desperate escape from the intensified bombing of El-Fasher and launching attacks with gangs accompanying RSF on the way.
WFP said it has made modest progress in providing food aid to some other parts of Darfur, but said these fragile benefits could be reversed when roads are closed in the upcoming rainy season.
Sheldon Yett, the UNICEF Sudan representative, also said that certain conditions in central Sudan are gradually improving, and central Sudan can help workers after Sudan’s army drove out RSF fighters.
But he said resources have been extended to their limits due to recent funding cuts, apparently referring to the sharp decline in international aid by the U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
“This is an imminent disaster,” he said.
“We are on the verge of irreversible damage to children as a whole, not because we lack the knowledge or tools to save them, but because we collectively fail to act urgently, and on this scale, this crisis requires. We need to reach these children.”
