MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In Sudan's Darfur, the city of El Fasher is on the brink of falling. It's been under siege for 18 months by a paramilitary group in a civil war with the army. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu reports.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Voice messages from besieged civilians trapped in a nightmare.
MOHAMED DUDA: The situation in El Fasher right now is very horrible, you know?
AKINWOTU: Mohamed Duda (ph) is fighting to survive in El Fasher, where the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group have laid siege on the historic capital of Darfur for over a year.
DUDA: There's lack - completely lack of food, completely lack of medicines.
AKINWOTU: More than a quarter of a million people remain there, according to the U.N., barely able to leave their homes amid relentless artillery shelling and drone strikes.
DUDA: The people depending of the animal feeds, called ambaz.
AKINWOTU: Duda says he and his family are forced to eat ambaz, or animal fodder. But even that won't last.
DUDA: Daily, the children dying of hunger, and also elders dying of starvations.
AKINWOTU: A battalion from the Sudanese Army was defending the city, which hosted more than 2 million people before the war. But that unit is almost defeated, cut off from the Sudanese army, who control north, central and eastern Sudan, while the RSF controls most of Darfur and now fights to control it entirely through a siege on the last city to resist it. But the violence in El Fasher is not just about the civil war.
NATHANIEL RAYMOND: This is the last battle in the Darfur genocide that began over 20 years ago in 2003 and 2005.
AKINWOTU: Nathaniel Raymond is the director of the Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab, whose expert analysis of the war has supplied evidence to the U.N. Security Council. They've documented evidence of ethnic cleansing by the RSF and allied Arab militias against African ethnic groups.
RAYMOND: And many of those trapped inside the city had come to El Fasher seeking protection over 20 years ago by U.N. forces that have now left, many of them - the majority - non-Arab, Zaghawa, Fur and Berti people.
AKINWOTU: The genocide 20 years ago killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million people, according to the U.N. And it has exploded again during the war in Sudan, which has caused the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
RAYMOND: The international community has been basically writing press releases and doing press conferences expressing their dismay over the situation in El Fasher. But despite having warnings, the international community has fundamentally done nothing.
AKINWOTU: Including, he said, a lack of pressure by countries like the U.S. on its allies that are accused of fueling the violence, like the United Arab Emirates.
Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Lagos.
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