Weekly Policy Statement August 4th – Darfur Women Action Group

August 4-8, 2025

A Week of Horror: Starvation, Rape, and Mass Graves in El Fasher. The World Must Act Now!

Sudan is seeing more evidence of mass atrocities. The Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) siege of El Fasher, Darfur has become a calculated campaign of extermination. Civilians have been massacred while fleeing the city, and families have been forced to eat animal feed to survive. Recently, publicly available satellite images have confirmed mass graves. What is happening is a deliberate and coordinated genocide. We need urgent, decisive global action now.

Recent Atrocities and Escalations

On August 4th, a news report confirmed that residents in El Fasher have resorted to eating animal feed rather than face starvation. The siege of the city has cut off all trade routes and prevented food, medicine, and humanitarian aid from entering the city. A World Food Programme (WFP) statement on the dire situation in El Fasher noted there was only “hunger and bombs.” There is simply no food left to buy in the city, humanitarian convoys are attacked, and civilians are being looted, raped, and starved. Supplies have now run out, citizens are on their last hope of survival. Now, even getting the animal feed is becoming difficult, and prices have soared. Nutritionally, this animal feed does not have sufficient vitamins and minerals for human beings and storing it incorrectly can result in a toxic fungus growth. Eating this for a long period of time will not stave off malnutrition. It is in no way a solution to the suffering in El Fasher. The WFP has been unable to reach El Fasher for over a year. El Fasher is a sealed off death trap, we must act now to end the famine and starvation.

On August 4th, RSF massacred at least 14 civilians in Qarni, northwest of El Fasher. Victims were civilians trying to escape the siege of El Fasher. Qarni is along a critical trade route to El Fasher and RSF choked it off and turned it into a killing field. There are also credible reports of the RSF using foreign fighters, from Colombia, Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, escalating violence and eroding national legal accountability. The silence of international actors in the face of these war crimes is deafening.

On August 6th, satellite images confirmed a significant rise of (likely civilian) deaths in El Fasher. The images and a detailed analysis shows at least 378 new graves in Abu Shouk, and 349 new graves in military sites. El Fasher is experiencing daily drone strikes and near-continuous shelling as the fighting between RSF and SAF intensifies. Additionally, the report describes how civilians attempting to flee face an RSF checkpoint where they are often subject to abuse, theft, and killings. El Fasher is under siege, and civilians are systematically being killed in a genocide.

Gender Emergency: Systematic Sexual Violence and Starvation

On August 7th, the UN released an urgent statement on the crisis situation in El Fasher. They emphasize that amid all of this suffering a ‘gender emergency’ has also grown. UN Women reported that 1,138 rapes have been reported, including 193 children since the April 2023 escalation of this conflict with actual numbers likely much higher. Survivors face stigma in their communities and women have no resources for protection. Women and girls cannot even safely access food without facing the risk of assault or exploitation. Female-headed households are now the hungriest in Sudan; three times more likely to face food insecurity. These atrocities against women and children are a violation of international law and a stain on our collective conscience.

Forced Recruitment Through Starvation and Terror

The RSF continues their systematic forced recruitment of young people. In RSF-controlled areas, young people are forced to fight under threats of torture or death, or told they will watch their families starve if they refuse. In cities like Hasahisa and Sennar, RSF fighters have seized food warehouses and distribute supplies only to those who pledge loyalty or take up arms. In villages across central Sudan, community leaders are coerced into delivering their youth as soldiers to fight in a war they don’t want in exchange for the bare minimum of security or medicine. In South Kordofan, conscription is traded for survival. These tactics are violations of international humanitarian law, the use of hunger, deprivation, and intimidation as tools of recruitment is an unambiguous war crime.

Sudan’s Worsening Public Health Catastrophe

In the past week, 2,345 new cholera cases were reported, including 21 deaths. That brings the total nationwide to 96,000 reported cases and 2,400 deaths, a horrific number. Tawila, Jebel Marra, Kalma, Otash, and other camps are epicenters of infection. People already starving and displaced are now dying from preventable disease. Time is running out, funding gaps and blocked aid routes continue to exacerbate the public health situation. This will turn an endemic into a potential country-wide epidemic of a preventable deadly disease.

Further, on August 3rd, the Health Ministry reported that at least 21 areas across Sudan have been affected by heavy rains and flooding. This increases the risk of further disease outbreaks and worsening malnutrition in already vulnerable communities

We urgently call on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the African Union, the United States, and the broader international community to take the following urgent actions:

Authorize urgent and unimpeded access to humanitarian aid for all in need across Sudan;
Swiftly authorize and deploy civilian protection forces to protect the innocent Sudanese people, particularly in Darfur;
Press the warring parties to stop the torture, murder, rape, and starvation of civilians in Darfur and across the Sudan;
Press the warring parties to immediately cease all attacks and strictly adhere to a permanent, verifiable ceasefire;
Impose criminal and financial accountability for all individuals and states complicit in committing past and present genocide and war crimes in Sudan;
U.S., UNSC, and allies must hold the regional and international enablers supplying weapons to the warring parties in Sudan accountable;
US and allies must cease the selling of arms to the UAE and prevent genocide in Sudan.
We call on the United States to support the acceptance of Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers, and grant Sudanese students visa to enter into the US without restriction

As attacks on civilians and the humanitarian crisis intensifies we must speak out and demand action. We call on DWAG supporters to speak up and tell our leaders- in the face of genocide and the incredible suffering they must not look the other way, they must meet their moral and legal obligation by standing against genocide in Sudan. The time to act is now.

Please join our Stand with Sudan campaign to take action, support the life saving effort and rally others to be a voice for the people of Sudan.

With our collective effort we can ease the suffering, compel our leaders to act and hold those responsible accountable.

With Gratitude,

Niemat Ahmadi,

DWAG President