ISTANBUL

At least 600,000 people, half of them children, have been displaced from El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, in recent months amid a siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said Wednesday.

UNICEF said El-Fasher has become an epicenter of child suffering, with 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, trapped inside the city, cut off from humanitarian aid for over 16 months.

“We are witnessing a devastating tragedy – children in El-Fasher are starving while UNICEF’s lifesaving nutrition services are being blocked,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

The siege, imposed by the RSF since April 2024, has severed supply lines, forcing health facilities and mobile nutrition teams to suspend operations as stocks dwindle. An estimated 6,000 children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) are currently untreated.

UNICEF said more than 10,000 children in El-Fasher have been treated for SAM since January, nearly double the number from last year, but services have now halted due to supply shortages.

In a single week, at least 63 people, mostly women and children, died of malnutrition in the city, according to recent reports.

Since the siege began, UNICEF verified over 1,100 grave violations against children in El-Fasher, including the killing or maiming of more than 1,000 children in homes, displacement camps, and marketplaces.

At least 23 children have faced rape, gang rape, or sexual abuse, while others have been abducted or recruited by armed groups, the UN agency said.

The Sudanese army and RSF have been fighting a war since April 2023 that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 14 million, according to the UN and local authorities. Research from US universities, however, estimates the death toll at around 130,000.