When the history of the 21st century is written, the name of El Fasher will surely appear on its bleakest pages. The besiegement of the city by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has lasted more than 500 days. Families are surviving on animal feed. An estimated 260,000 civilians face a terrifying choice: to stay and die of starvation or in an airstrike – or attempt to flee and face rape, robbery and death.

El Fasher is the last major city in Darfur still defended by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – and allied fighters – in the bloody and unrelenting struggle with the RSF, which has lasted almost two and a half years. Yet a conflict that has created the world’s

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