On a recent dawn in Al-Fashir, worshippers walked quietly to the Al-Safiya Mosque for morning prayers under a sky humming with drones.
Moments later, two rockets ripped through the mosque, killing more than 75 people and scattering survivors into the streets.
It was one of the deadliest strikes yet in a siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has starved and bombarded Sudan’s last government-held city in North Darfur for more than 500 days.
TRT World spoke with residents of the besieged city who had to bear witness to the unprecedented attack.
“I saw the mosque strike with my own eyes. I swear to God, even the RSF soldier who carried out the strike would leave the RSF if he saw what I saw,” says Jamal, a trader from Al-Daraja Awla.
“It was a deeply tragic and shocking event for us,” he adds.
Muawiya Abdullah, 30, from Al-Radif neighbourhood, offers a similar account. He recalls how people were sitting, reciting the Qur’an and praying for the city when the drone strike hit the mosque.
“The entire city was devastated and deeply saddened. The event left a lasting wound in people’s hearts, and to this day it continues to affect us,” he tells TRT World.
What happened in that mosque is a clear violation of international humanitarian law and all international conventions, according to Dr. Adam Idris Adam Hassan, a lawyer and Director of the Sudanese Center for Rule of Law in El-Fashir.
Hassan says the building, “very close to my house,” had no military presence. “Nevertheless, it was bombed and destroyed on the heads of worshippers,” he explains.
“This act is inhumane and has nothing to do with legitimate warfare. The shelling does not distinguish between mosques and homes, it destroys everything in its path,” Hassan tells TRT World.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown called the attack “gravely alarming,” and a war crime that must be investigated.
The strike deepened the sense of fear gripping Al-Fashir, where residents already face relentless shelling, starvation, and a total blockade that has cut off food, water, and medical supplies.
Starvation and displacement
What began in April 2023 as a civil war between Sudan’s military and the RSF has turned into a campaign of destruction. By spring 2024, RSF militants had completely encircled Al-Fashir, cutting the last supply lines after local armed groups pledged loyalty to the army.
Nearly three-quarters of a million residents are now trapped with no safe way out.
Dr. Hassan describes the RSF siege as the worst humanitarian tragedy in the world today. “People’s bodies have withered, physically transformed by hunger.”
“It is no less severe than Gaza, except that Al-Fashir lacks media attention,” Hassan adds.
The blockade has devastated daily life. Food prices have surged to more than four times the national average. Markets stand empty, and wells are drying up.
Jamal says food is so scarce that residents have to register in notebooks to receive a small amount, perhaps a single kilo of rice or flour. A barrel of water now costs 15,000 Sudanese pounds, and even fetching it is deadly.
“Just yesterday, a man who went to fetch water was injured by a drone strike. Right now, I have no water since this morning,” Jamal says. “Our bodies have become very weak due to lack of food.”
Famine conditions are now tightening around Al-Fashir, pushing the city towards the thresholds that define famine: over 20 percent of households without food, 30 percent of children acutely malnourished, and at least two adult or four child deaths per 10,000 people per day.
Children are bearing the brunt. In the first half of 2025 alone, at least 239 children have died from hunger-related causes, according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Network, though aid workers warn the true toll is likely far higher.
UNICEF says malnutrition is rampant nationwide, leaving many children “reduced to skin and bones.”
Across town, Muawiya faces the same reality. Life, he says, is “constant shelling, drone strikes, and stray bullets.”
Water now comes from a handful of remaining wells, and food from communal kitchens known as takiya. Hospitals have collapsed.
“There is no proper healthcare, only basic first aid using very primitive methods. Mosquito nets are used for wound dressing, and tools are washed in hot water and sterilised with fire,” Muawiya says.
“Unfortunately, chronic diseases have no medicines available,” he adds.
Faith, fear and fading hope
The siege has cut off Al-Fashir from all humanitarian assistance.
In June, a WFP–UNICEF convoy carrying food and nutrition supplies was ambushed, killing five aid workers and destroying its cargo. With roads sealed and air drops impossible, agencies say they have no way to deliver life-saving aid.
Residents describe only two routes out - the Mellit and Tawila roads - but both are deadly.
“If you encounter the RSF on the way, you should know your day is over. It’s a huge gamble, like fighters going into battle,” says Jamal.
Eyewitnesses describe a city under siege where civilians cannot be evacuated, aid cannot reach those in need, and leaving Al-Fashir is an extremely high-risk decision.
Along the few remaining roads, militias reportedly detain, torture, kill, or even forcibly take blood from those fleeing.
“At checkpoints, there is armed robbery, sometimes they take everything you have, sometimes they take you to militia-held areas and demand a large ransom from your family,” Muawiya says.
Some residents still risk their lives to bring back small amounts of food, but Muawiya estimates the chance of returning alive at “around one percent.”
If the city falls completely, he warns, it could mean “massacres and genocidal killings driven by ethnic and racial motives.”
Yet even in this bleak environment, people hold onto faith. Residents say they no longer expect anything from the government, the UN, or the international community, whose response they describe as “very weak.”
“But they believe in the strength of the youth defending the city, and in God to protect them,” Muawiya adds.
