Save the Children worker Amar Osman* shares his account from the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan as violence continues across the country.
Amar Osman* works for Save the Children in El Fasher, Sudan. He is a father of six, the youngest of whom was born the day the war began in April 2023. Amar sent his wife and children away from El Fasher in April 2024 before the city was besieged. He remains in the city, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, where he continues his work. Below is his account in his own words.
“I sent my children away from El Fasher to save their lives. It was a very difficult decision, and it is still difficult to be away from them. When they left, my children were crying: ‘Baba, we will not leave you alone, Baba, you will not survive here alone,’ but I needed to protect them.
“My wife gave birth to our youngest child the day the war began. The fighting had just reached El Fasher, and everyone was in chaos. The medical staff told us to evacuate the hospital because it was being targeted. My wife, my newborn baby and I fled the hospital, and when we returned home, I found my older children in the care of their aunt. Terrified, their aunt had protected them from the bombing by hiding them in the kitchen.
“My house was bombed twice while my family was still together. The first time it was bombed my children were all crying and screaming. We stayed together for another three months, but the house was bombed again. That’s when I decided my children needed to leave.
“The children didn’t want to eat much after the bombing. They lost their appetites because of the fear. They also learned a new language – the language of war, the language of how to survive an airstrike, like how to sprinkle water on your bed to stop the fire from shrapnel spreading”
“Since then, two young men from my family have died in El Fasher, and three others have been injured. Every day we hear news of someone who has died or been injured.
“In this war and in this city, there are daily violations against children. Just last week, three children were killed. Children are at risk of dying every day, especially those forced to live on the streets because they lost their parents or were separated from them.
“It has been very difficult to find food now in El Fasher because there is nothing in the market. Sometimes we eat one or two meals a day, and always the same few things. There is hardly any money, and although we can still use some online banking tools, sometimes the person in the market doesn’t have a bank account, so we can’t buy their goods.
“There is no clean water in the city anymore so people rely on artesian wells for drinking and washing. Some are salty, some are unclean and untreated, which has made a lot of people sick. I have had diarrhoea more than once.
“The city is very dirty with garbage, and this filth has led to flies multiplying everywhere, as well as mosquitoes and other insects.
“There are no functioning hospitals in El Fasher, except for one, which used to be a maternity hospital, but emergency services have been added to it. Some people also use it for non-emergency medical services, but there is a huge shortage of medicines. Sometimes people are afraid to go to the hospital for fear of bombing, so they buy medicines on the black market. Medicines bought on the black market are expensive, and even then, you can’t trust them; sometimes they are replaced with a similar medicine or a product from an unknown source.
“While they were still in El Fasher, my children caught malaria and struggled to get treatment. Some time ago I had an eye infection that was common in the city. I had to buy medicine from the market, but the prescribed medicine was not available, so the pharmacist gave me something else. It wasn’t the right medicine, and it didn’t help the eye pain.
“El Fasher has now been under siege for nearly seven months. Although the world knows what is happening, there is no interest in saving us from this situation. There is a severe lack of services and a huge number of people, many of them children, others injured or killed. As a result, the people of El Fasher are now living without hope.”
