Children dying of hunger in the city of El-Fasher du Darfur

The women of community cuisine of the Sudanese city besieged in El-Fasher are seated in stories of despair.

“Our children die before our eyes,” one of them told the BBC.

“We do not know what to do. They are innocent. They have nothing to do with the army or (its paramilitary rival) the rapid support forces. Our sufferings are worse than what you can imagine.”

Food is so rare in El-Fasher that prices have climbed to the point where money covered for a week of meals can now only buy one. International aid organizations have condemned “the calculated use of famine as a weapon of war”.

The BBC has obtained rare images of people still trapped in the city, sent by a local activist and filmed by an independent cameraman.

The Sudanese army has been fighting for rapid support forces (RSF) for more than two years after their commanders jointly organized a coup, then fell.

El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, is one of the most brutal front lines in the conflict.

The hunger crisis is aggravated by a wave of cholera sweeping the sordid camps of those moved by the fighting, which have transformed this week in one of the most intense RSF attacks to date.

The paramilitaries tightened their 14-month blockade after losing control of the capital Khartoum earlier this year and intensified their battle for El-Fasher, the last foot of the Darfur armed forces.

In the north and the center of the country where the army fought in the territory of the RSF, food and medical aid began to make a breach in civil suffering.

But the situation is desperate in the conflict areas of Western and South Sudan.

In Matbakh-Al-Khair community cooking in El-Fasher at the end of last month, the volunteers transformed Ambaz into a porridge. This is the residue of peanuts after extraction of oil, normally fed to animals.

Sometimes it is possible to find sorghum or millet, but on filming day, the director of the kitchen says: “There is neither flour nor bread.”

“Now we have reached the point of eating Ambaz. May God relieve us of this calamity, there is nothing left to buy,” he adds.

The UN has amplified its appeal for a humanitarian break to allow convoys of food in the city, with its Sudanal SHELDON YETT envoy, again demanding this week that the sides at war are observing their obligations under international law.

The army has given authorization for the trucks to continue, but the UN is still waiting for the official word of the paramilitary group.

The RSF advisers said they thought the truce would be used to facilitate the delivery of food and ammunition to the “besieged militias of the army inside El-Fasher.

They also said that the paramilitary group and its allies set up “safe itineraries” so that civilians leave the city.

Local stakeholders in El-Fasher can receive emergency species via a digital banking system, but it does not go very far.

“The prices on the markets have exploded,” said Mathilde Vu, advocacy director of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

“Today, $ 5,000 (£ 3,680) cover a meal for 1,500 people in one day. Three months ago, the same amount could feed them for an entire week.”

Doctors say people die from malnutrition. It is impossible to know how much – a report citing a regional health official has put the number more than 60 last week.

Hospitals cannot face. Few still work. They were damaged by bombing and are short of medical supplies to help both hunger and those injured in continuous bombing.

“We have many malnutrition children admitted to the hospital, but unfortunately, there is no unique sachet of (therapeutic food),” said Dr. Ibrahim Abdullah Khater, pediatrician of Al Saudi hospital, noting that the five seriously malnutric children currently in the neighborhood also have medical complications.

“They’re just waiting for their death,” he said.

When hunger attacks have struck, those who generally die first are the most vulnerable, the least healthy or those suffering from pre -existing conditions.

“The situation is so miserable, it’s so catastrophic,” said the doctor in a voice message.

“The children of El-Fasher die daily due to the lack of food, the lack of medicine. Unfortunately, the international community only looks at.”

International non -governmental organizations working in Sudan have published an urgent statement this week declaring that “supported attacks, obstruction of aid and targeting critical infrastructure demonstrate a deliberate strategy to break the civilian population by hunger, fear and exhaustion”.

They said that “the anecdotal relationships of recent food hob for military use add to the suffering of civilians”.

“There is no safe passage from the city, with blocked roads and those trying to flee from attacks, taxation at control points, community discrimination and death,” said organizations.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled in recent months, many from the camp of displaced people in Zamzam on the verge of El-Fasher, seized by the RSF in April.

They arrive in Tawila, a city of 60 km (37 miles) to the west of the city, weak and dehydrated, with accounts of violence and extortion along the road from RSF allied groups.

Life is safer in overcrowded camps, but they are hunted down by the disease – the deadliest of all: cholera.

It is caused by polluted water and killed hundreds in Sudan, triggered by the destruction of aquatic infrastructure and lack of food and medical care, and aggravated by floods due to the rainy season.

Unlike El-Fasher, Tawila Aid, caregivers have at least access, but their supplies are limited, explains John Joseph Ocheibi, the project coordinator on site for a group called the Alliance for International Medical Action.

“We have shortages in terms of (washing facilities), in terms of medical supplies, to be able to face this situation,” he told the BBC. “We mobilize resources to see how we can best respond.”

Sylvain Penicaud of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) believes that there are only three liters of water per person per day in the camps, which, he says, is “well below the fundamental need and obliges people to obtain water from contaminated sources”.

Zubaaida Ismail Ishaq is in the tent clinic. She is seven months pregnant, emaciated and exhausted. His story is a story of trauma told by many.

She tells us that she used to exchange when she had a little money, before fleeing El-Fasher.

Her husband was captured by armed men on the road to Tawila. Her daughter has a head injury.

Zubaida and his mother fell with cholera shortly after their arrival in the camp.

“We drink water without boiling it,” she said. “We have no one to get water. Since I came here, I have nothing left.”

Back in El -Fasher, we hear calls for the help of women grouped to popular soup – any type of help.

“We are exhausted. We want this seat to be raised,” explains Faiza Abkar Mohammed. “Even if they are aerial drops, everything – we are completely exhausted.”