Dr. Mohannad Al Nsour

El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is living through yet another chapter of Sudan’s endless war, one written in blood and grief, where life itself struggles to breathe beneath the smoke of fire and siege.

The city, once a vibrant hub of trade and humanity, has in recent days turned into an open graveyard. After the Rapid Support Forces seized control, neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, hospitals and displacement camps have become silent tombs, and the streets echo with the cries of mothers searching for their children beneath the ruins.

United Nations and human rights reports confirm the occurrence of massacres against civilians and horrific violations in hospitals, homes, and displacement camps, amid the near-total collapse of a fragile health system already crippled by siege, hunger, and shortages. Access to healthcare has become nearly impossible; no medicine, no power, no water. Birth and death now take place in the same room, without light, without care, and without hope.

At the heart of this inferno stands the Saudi Maternity Hospital, a witness to the unfolding tragedy. On October 29, 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) condemned chilling reports of the killing of more than 460 patients and their companions, along with the abduction of six health workers the day before. Doctors and nurses lost their lives trying to save others. The WHO affirmed that attacks on healthcare facilities are flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, declaring that turning hospitals into targets is the death of mercy itself.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned of continued systematic killings and raids against civilians in El-Fasher, calling for an immediate ceasefire and the establishment of safe corridors for the wounded and displaced.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 33,000 people fled the city within just two days, from October 27 to 28, toward Mellit and Tawila, escaping under heavy bombardment. Yet the exodus only deepened the tragedy, straining the already exhausted health services in nearby towns.

In El-Fasher, death no longer comes only by bullets. It now emerges from every direction; from fuel shortages that halt ambulances, from power cuts that silence ventilators, and from a dwindling medical workforce forced to flee or disappear. Maternity, emergency, and intensive care units operate at their bare minimum, unable to refer critical cases as roads grow unsafe and communication collapses.

Reports also warn of disrupted vaccine cold chains and alarming rates of child malnutrition in displacement areas, signaling the onset of a total health collapse.

Today, El-Fasher is suffocating under fire , yet its cries reach the world. The voices of doctors who stayed behind, of mothers who lost their children, and of volunteers who race against death to save others, all rise as a collective plea to conscience.

What is happening in El-Fasher is not another passing episode in a long war, it is a moral outcry to humanity itself:
Stop the killing. Open safe passages. Send medicine and food before war extinguishes the last pulse of life in a city that once stood for dignity, and now stands as a symbol of endurance against the silence of the world.