The UN says famine conditions have been confirmed in Zam Zam camp for internally displaced people, shown in 2015, near El-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region
The UN says famine conditions have been confirmed in Zam Zam camp for internally displaced people, shown in 2015, near El-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region AFP

Senior United Nations officials warned on Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in the besieged Sudanese town of El-Fasher, amid signs that the fighting could soon escalate.

El-Fasher is one of five state capitals in Sudan's western Darfur region and the only one not in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been battling the regular army since April 2023.

The United Nations says the war across much of Sudan has created the world's largest displacement crisis, with millions uprooted, and has led to famine at a displacement camp near El-Fasher.

"Hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in El-Fasher are now at risk of the consequences of mass violence," Martha Pobee, the UN's Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, told the UN Security Council.

"As fighting engulfs the city, it has further exposed an extremely vulnerable population, including internally displaced persons living in large camps near El-Fasher. This violence has also affected health care facilities."

Darfur has seen some of the war's worst atrocities, and the RSF has besieged El-Fasher since May.

Sudan's war has already killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates as high as 150,000.

"Civilians, especially women and children, have been hit," said the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya.

"Civilian sites and infrastructure, including hospitals and internally displaced persons camps have been hit. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including more than 700,000 internally displaced people in and around El-Fasher, are at immediate threat.

"Our concern is mounting as we receive reports of intense shelling of central and western parts of El-Fasher and deployment of additional forces."

Close to 1.7 million people in the north Darfur region are facing acute food insecurity, she added.

"We are therefore horrified by signs that the fighting will intensify as the rainy season draws to a close in the coming months," Msuya said.

Independent UN experts earlier this month appealed for the quick deployment of an "impartial force" in Sudan for civilian protection.