The siege of El Fasher, North Darfur
El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan. Reported onset 1 April 2024.
TL;DR
The siege of El Fasher in North Darfur cut the last major town in Darfur held outside Rapid Support Forces control off from routine humanitarian access, pushing residents and people sheltering in nearby camps into repeated secondary displacement across Darfur and towards Chad.
What happened
- Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces closed in on El Fasher, the administrative capital of North Darfur and the last major Darfur town outside Rapid Support Forces control.
- Camps and settlements around the town, some of which had hosted people displaced since the early 2000s, came under direct fire, forcing residents who had already been displaced once to move again.
- Humanitarian convoys and commercial supply routes into the town were repeatedly interrupted, and aid agencies reported sustained difficulty in reaching people inside the siege line.
Why it matters for the data
- El Fasher is a protracted displacement site layered on top of an active conflict, so movement here produces secondary and tertiary displacement rather than a single outflow.
- Access restrictions mean population figures for the town lag behind events, and monitoring agencies publish estimates with wide uncertainty bands.
- Movement out of North Darfur crosses into Chad, which links this event to a cross border refugee response rather than an internal displacement response alone.
What to watch next
- IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix emergency event tracking updates for North Darfur.
- OCHA access snapshots recording which corridors into the town are open.
- UNHCR arrival monitoring at the eastern Chad border points.
Where the figures come from
This page does not publish population figures for the event. Numbers for an active event change faster than any single page can responsibly restate them, and access restrictions mean estimates carry wide uncertainty. The organisations below publish the current figures and the methodology behind them.
Country context
For the wider picture, see the Sudan displacement dashboard, which tracks conflict events, population movement and humanitarian needs on a rolling basis.