MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Sudan, El Fasher
Armed conflict

Civilians in El Fasher, Sudan, must be protected

Press Release29 October 2025

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urgently appeals for civilians in El Fasher, Sudan’s North Darfur state, to be protected and allowed to flee to safer areas.

Given the ethnic-based violence spiking across Darfur for over two years and the large-scale massacres committed in Zamzam when the RSF and their allies took the camp last April, we are deeply alarmed that this could happen again in El Fasher.

On Monday, our medical teams, working 37 miles away in Tawila, admitted dozens of patients from El Fasher to the overwhelmed hospital in Tawila.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Sudan, El Fasher
Tawila Omda IDP camp, set up shortly after the arrival of new IDPs from Zamzam IDP camp near El-Fasher, stormed by the RSF in April 2025. Over 200,000 IDPs reached Tawila between April and June.
Jérôme Tubiana/MSF

During the night of 26 to 27 October, around 1,000 people from El Fasher arrived by truck at the entrance to Tawila, where we set up a health post to provide emergency care and refer patients in critical condition directly to the hospital. So far today, about 300 people were treated at the health post and 130 sent to the emergency room of the hospital, including 15 requiring lifesaving surgery.

For now, many more people appear to remain trapped in and around El Fasher, and we stand ready to respond to further mass influx of displaced and injured people in Tawila.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Sudan, El Fasher
 Gate of Tawila on the main road from El-Fasher. On the horizon, the silhouette of Jebel Kusa, 7 km in the North, near which lies a militarized Arab settlement from which Janjaweed militias have launched raids on Tawila, surrounding villages, farms and the road for twenty years.
Jérôme Tubiana/MSF

Last week, over 1,300 people fleeing El Fasher arrived by truck in Tawila on 18-19 October, adding to the large numbers of forcibly displaced persons already in Tawila. Amongst these new arrivals, MSF screened 165 children under five years old and found that 75% were acutely malnourished, including 26% severely. 

This shocking rate is a testament to the horror unfolding in El Fasher, where famine has been spreading as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been attacking and besieging the area for more than 500 days, preventing food and aid from reaching the starving people at all costs. With soaring prices, community kitchens shutting down, shelled and depleted markets and humanitarian aid blocked, people have had almost no access to food.