At the end of June 2025, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Commander in Chief of the SAF, publicly endorsed a humanitarian ceasefire in El Fasher following a phone conversation with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The truce was intended to facilitate the entry of urgently needed food, medicine, and fuel into the besieged city, where civilians have been trapped under deteriorating conditions since May 2024.
However, the coordination of El Fasher Resistance Committees stated on Wednesday, July2, that no sign of the ceasefire exists on the ground. “This humanitarian, security, and national demand has now become an absolute necessity,” the committees said in a statement, warning that the ongoing blockade has brought the city to the brink of collapse.
El Fasher is one of the final military strongholds held by the SAF in the Darfur region. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have established control over four out of Darfur’s five states. On July 1, the RSF-aligned “Tasis” (Founding) coalition announced the formation of its executive body, naming RSF leader Mohamed Hamadan Dagalo also known as Hemedti as president, SPLM-North leader Abdelaziz al-Hilu as deputy, and alaa Naqd as the coalition’s spokesperson. The declaration is viewed by observers as a move toward creating a rival government within Sudan.
In its statement, the Resistance Committees directly accused the RSF of blocking any negotiation avenues and rejecting the UN-mediated truce using “baseless justifications that collapse under the weight of reality.” The RSF reportedly dismissed the ceasefire proposal by claiming El Fasher is no longer inhabited by Civilian-an assertion the committees categorically denied.
“Dozens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in the city,” the statement asserter, countering RSF claims and emphasized that those civilians continue to suffer amid dire shortages of essential goods and medical supplies.
The committees also criticized Sudan’s de facto central authorities for what they described as willful negligence. “The government’s silence and failure to lift the siege tantamount to abandoning its responsibility to protect citizens in El Fasher,” the statement said. “By refusing to act, the authorities are effectively leaving tens of thousands of people under siege.”
The humanitarian situation in El Fasher has grown increasingly desperate. Prices of essential goods have skyrocketed, access to clean water is limited, and medical services are virtually nonexistent. The Resistance Committees stressed that the city’s continued isolation constitutes a moral and political failure.
“The state must intervene to save the lives of its citizens in El Fasher,” the statement urged. “Sudan, in its current fragile state, cannot afford the fall of yet another major city-particularly one with the symbolic and geographic important of El Fasher.”
Concluding with a strong message to national leadership, the committees warned: “The political and military leadership must understand that delay is betrayal, hesitation is complicity, and indecision is a partnership in crime.”
As the war in Sudan continues to deepen, the situation in El Fasher stands as a stark example of the widening humanitarian crisis, marked by inaction, fractured authority, and a civilian population left to endure the consequences.
