Sudan civilians under siege resort to cowhide for food

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PORT SUDAN - More than a year of siege in the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher has forced some civilians to turn to animal skins for food as the country's war grinds on.

El-Fasher is the last major holdout in the vast western Darfur region against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023.

With the RSF's nearly 18-month siege cutting off humanitarian aid to the city -- home to 400,000 trapped civilians -- El-Fasher has run out of almost everything.

"After not eating for three days, three of my neighbours and I roasted cowhide," said Salah Abdallah, 47.

"Even then, it was difficult to get firewood to light a fire."

Soup kitchens, until recently run by volunteers, have closed for lack of supplies.

A civilian group documenting the civil war's abuses, the El-Fasher resistance committee, posted a video on social media on Wednesday showing rolls of animal skin sizzling on a small wood fire.

"The people of El-Facher are now eating cowhide to survive because there isn't even any animal fodder left," the committee wrote.

Livestock feed, once used as a meal of last resort, has become scarce and exorbitantly priced.

On X, a user who shared the video said they were "old skins" used to stave off hunger.

'No matter the danger'

Since August the RSF has stepped up its artillery and drone bombardments in an attempt to take the strategic city.

In recent weeks the paramilitaries have seized control of several sectors of El-Fasher, and are wearing down the army's last strongholds bit by bit.

After fleeing his Awlad Al-Rif neighbourhood in El-Fasher, which fell to the RSF in recent weeks, Salah Adam found refuge in a reception centre in the city's Daraja Oula quarter.

"My family left the city three months ago. I stayed behind to keep an eye on our home," the 28-year-old university student explained.

"In the first two days after the soup kitchens shut down, I shared one bowl of corn porridge without salt with another family," he said, adding that he had not eaten since Wednesday.

"I will leave the city, no matter the danger."

According to satellite images analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, the RSF have dug nearly 68 kilometres (42 miles) of earthwork embankments around the city. A corridor just three to four kilometres wide is the only exit.

'Fear of dying of hunger'

The war in Sudan was triggered by a power struggle between two former allies: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army commander and de facto ruler of Sudan since a 2021 coup, and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, head of the RSF.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and pushed nearly 25 million into acute hunger.

According to the United Nations, more than one million people have fled El-Fasher since the war began, accounting for 10 percent of all internally displaced people in the country.

Among them is Ibrahim Osman, who now lives in Tawila, around 70 kilometres west of the city.

"I had decided not to leave it at all, despite the never-ending bombardment, but the fear of dying of hunger pushed me to leave," the 36-year-old said.

The population of the city, once the region's largest, has decreased by about 62 percent, the UN's migration agency said.

If El-Fasher falls to the RSF, the paramilitaries will have control of the entire Darfur region, where they have sought to establish a rival administration.

The army holds the country's north, centre and east, while the RSF holds sway in the west and parts of the south.