Warnings have been coming for months.

Last December, the global hunger monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported famine in two camps near the northwestern Sudanese city of El Fasher, home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Even then, they warned Sudan's ongoing civil war could see famine spread into the city by May.

The warning was prescient. El Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur, has now been under siege for over a year now. This week, the United Nations and a number of its agencies warned that approximately 300,000 people trapped inside the city face starvation.

"WFP [the World Food Program] has not been able to deliver food assistance to El Fasher by road for over a year as all roads leading there are blocked," the UN aid program said in a statement on Tuesday. "The city is cut off from humanitarian access leaving the remaining population with little choice but to fend for survival with whatever limited supplies are left."

Many residents are resorting to eating hay or animal fodder. Food that is available in the city costs significantly more than elsewhere in Sudan, making it unaffordable for most people.

"What we really need now is for a humanitarian pause to be agreed upon so that we can safely transport urgent food and nutrition supplies into the city," Leni Kinzli, a WFP spokesperson based in Sudan, told DW.

Sudan's civil war began in early 2023 when two rival military groups — the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — started fighting for control.

The SAF, with about 200,000 personnel and led by the country's de facto leader Abdel-Fattah Burhan,........

© Deutsche Welle