Sudan’s last government-held city in Darfur, El Fasher, has been under a tightening siege for months. Reports from a U.N.-mandated mission say the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed crimes against humanity during the siege, which should bring worldwide urgency to this crisis.
The human cost is visibly escalating. In September alone, 23 people, among them five pregnant women, died of malnutrition inside the encircled city, according to doctors’ groups documenting the blockade’s effects on food access and care. Recent shelling and drone strikes around displacement sites in and near El Fasher killed at least 53 civilians over three days, including strikes on a hospital and a mosque, the U.N. human rights chief said; attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure were called blatant violations of international law. This isn’t random chaos: U.N. experts have denounced systematic attacks on women and girls, including conflict-related sexual violence that intensifies as fighting spikes and services collapse.
Why women and girls? Because the risk landscape is stacked against them. More than 12 million people, primarily women and girls, are at risk of gender-based violence (GBV) in Sudan, per UNFPA assessments, and service disruptions are widespread. At the same time, over 80% of health facilities in affected areas are non-functional, severing access to lifesaving sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and GBV services just when they are most needed. If we accept those baselines, the policy conversation has to shift from what’s ideal to what is operationally possible under siege. From that starting point, the question is how to turn protection norms into steps that work under fire; here’s a five-step action-first plan.
First, humanitarian corridors should be negotiated with clear, monitorable parameters: demilitarized routes, third-party observers, and satellite-verified “no-strike” commitments for specific facilities (hospitals, displacement sites, warehouses). The legal basis is already there, repeated strikes on civilians and protected infrastructure are unlawful, and the siege’s famine indicators strengthen the argument that access must be guaranteed now. The practical piece is verification: share a public corridor map with exact stop points, put basic trackers on aid trucks, and have neutral monitors file daily incident logs that are double-checked with satellite images. Set a clear rule: two confirmed blockages, or one strike on a listed site, automatically trigger a sanctions request and an evidence file to U.N. sanctions monitors and the ICC within 48 hours.
Second, the response inside and around El Fasher needs to pivot to mobile, survivor-centered services that can move with displacement and operate even when static clinics go dark. That means GBV case management, clinical care for rape (including PEP time-windows and emergency contraception), psychosocial first aid, and distribution of dignity kits through pop-up points near large congregation sites. UNFPA and partners are already delivering GBV and SRH packages across multiple states despite the insecurity; the lesson is that mobile modalities are feasible and scalable with the right access, escorts, and supply buffers.
Third, for households most at risk, cash-plus protection should be standard. Cash alone can reduce exposure to predatory coping (e.g., survival sex), but it works best when paired with information on safe services and hotlines, safe-shelter referrals, and secure distribution points aligned with community security mapping. This isn’t theoretical; under siege, high GBV risk, and widespread clinic closures push families into dangerous trade-offs, making cash plus protection a practical necessity.
Fourth, set up women-led protection committees inside displacement clusters to feed early-warning signals (new checkpoints, forced recruitment, patterns of abduction) into humanitarian security cells. This closes the loop between incident reporting and route planning for aid convoys and mobile clinics, and it aligns with what U.N. officials are already warning about spikes in civilian targeting and sexual violence when access breaks down.
Fifth, accountability and deterrence must be made concrete, not rhetorical. The Reuters-flagged determination that RSF acts around El Fasher constitutes crimes against humanity provides a legal hook for escalated, targeted sanctions and for evidence preservation aimed at future prosecutions. The U.N. Security Council has also heard detailed testimony that sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in Sudan, which is yet another reason to give GBV prevention a core protection priority.
None of these actions requires waiting for a nationwide ceasefire. Corridors can be negotiated for limited windows and spaces; mobile GBV/SRH teams can operate where fixed facilities are offline; cash-plus protection can be delivered with low visibility; and community-level early warning can run alongside formal deconfliction channels. Anchoring these practical steps to the facts we already have, malnutrition deaths in a besieged city, documented attacks on displacement sites and health facilities, systematic targeting of women and girls, double-digit-million GBV risk, and 80%+ facility outages, is not just consistent with humanitarian law, it is the most realistic path to saving lives in El Fasher right now.
Photo by Meral Oral