Dr. Omar Selik harbored a poignant, urgent desire: to be truly seen. Following a grueling, hour-long interview, conducted through a fragile satellite internet connection, about the sheer terror of life in the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher, he requested to activate his camera. An exhausted, war-weary face emerged on screen, then slowly transformed into a radiant, hopeful grin.
“This is a good day for me,” Dr. Selik declared, a wave of profound relief washing over his features. “I feel like a human being again.”
I found myself smiling in return. This fleeting moment of human connection provided him immense comfort after 500 excruciating days under siege. Dr. Selik, 43, stood as one of the last remaining health workers in El Fasher, a city of a quarter-million desperate residents in Darfur, where death rained from the sky and constant starvation was a grim companion.
Moments before, he had wept while describing a pregnant woman bleeding to death in his care, a life lost for the want of basic medicines. He then tilted his camera, inviting me to glimpse his lunch. What appeared on screen was truly shocking.
He held a plate of lumpy, brown mush – animal fodder typically fed to camels and cows. This, he explained, had become the primary source of nutrition for most people in El Fasher, a chilling testament to how both he, a doctor, and the population he desperately tried to save, had been stripped of their humanity.
He emphasized that the ability to connect with someone from the outside world brought immense comfort. “People are dying, and nobody is even watching.”
For me, it was also a moment of stark clarity. Since Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023, entering Darfur – the epicenter of a nationwide famine and a brutal siege – had been impossible. Yet, through the pervasive fog of war, I had encountered someone whose raw, urgent testimony brought the conflict’s depravity into sharp, painful focus.
And then, he was gone.
Days later, Dr. Selik departed his home to attend dawn prayers at a nearby mosque. A missile violently slammed through the roof, detonating among the worshippers and claiming approximately 75 lives. Dr. Selik was among the fallen.
This incident marked the latest chilling illustration of the lethal blend of technology, brutality, and impunity that has come to define a war that, by some expert estimations, has killed as many as 400,000 people. Witnesses reported that the missile was launched by a drone, one of many allegedly supplied by the United Arab Emirates to the Rapid Support Forces (R.S.F.), the paramilitary group enforcing the siege on El Fasher. The Emirates, however, denies providing support to either faction in the conflict.
For the city’s beleaguered residents, it was another devastating loss. “My heart is broken,” lamented Salwa Ahmed, a university lecturer who had sought refuge in Dr. Selik’s home.
Like many others, Ms. Ahmed expressed a profound sense of abandonment by the international community, skeptical that any genuine help would ever materialize. Yet, a faint beacon of hope flickers on the horizon, championed by President Trump’s senior adviser for Africa, Massad Boulos.
For several weeks, Mr. Boulos has been engaged in negotiations with the R.S.F. to facilitate the entry of international aid into El Fasher. Last week, he indicated that an aid convoy could arrive “very, very soon.”
A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that the convoy is expected to comprise approximately 45 U.N. trucks and could commence its journey as early as next Monday. Crucially, however, the intricate details of aid distribution once it reaches the devastated city are still being finalized.
The U.S. official noted the uncertainty surrounding whether the R.S.F. would permit aid to reach neighborhoods controlled by its adversary, the Sudanese military – precisely the areas that have borne the heaviest burden of the siege.
The State Department declined to comment on the ongoing discussions, referring instead to Mr. Boulos’s previous public statements regarding his efforts in Sudan.
The siege of El Fasher commenced in April 2024, as the R.S.F., largely composed of fighters from Darfur, sought to dislodge Sudan’s military from the expansive region. The intensity of the siege escalated in March following the R.S.F.’s expulsion from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
While others fled, Dr. Selik chose to remain. “He said, ‘I can’t leave these people behind,’” recalled Omer Eltayeb, a fellow doctor residing in Ireland, who conversed with Dr. Selik in July.
Dr. Selik dedicated himself to the city’s last operational hospital, which had endured 30 bombings, rapidly retraining himself as a combat medic. “Head trauma, chest trauma, punctured abdomens,” he enumerated, listing the common injuries he treated. “Anything caused by a bullet or a bomb.”
This past summer, the crisis deepened further after R.S.F. fighters constructed a formidable earthen wall around El Fasher, now stretching an astonishing 42 miles. Anyone attempting to cross it under the cover of night was shot dead.
At the hospital, food and medical supplies quickly dwindled. Surgeons were forced to improvise, using mosquito nets as makeshift medical gauze for operations. Cholera and malaria outbreaks swept through the crowded wards.
One day, at a small clinic he managed in the northern part of the city, Dr. Selik encountered a group of Colombian mercenaries fighting alongside the R.S.F. “They were speaking Spanish,” he recounted. Later, he said, the bodies of Colombians killed in battle were brought to the hospital.
For the safety of his family, Dr. Selik sent his wife and children to Khartoum. Tragically, his sister remained behind, only to be killed with her three children in August when a shell struck their home. “That’s just one story,” he told me, his voice heavy. “In this city, there are so many like it.”
A Starlink terminal, provided by a relative, offered a crucial link to the outside world. Yet, even there, the conflict’s insidious reach found him. In WhatsApp groups of Sudanese medics, Dr. Selik was profoundly disturbed by the bitter disputes that flared along political or ethnic lines, as Dr. Eltahir recounted.
“People were calling each other pigs,” he said. “Omar asked them to stop.”
But the Starlink terminal also provided him with a vital means to call for help. What worried him most, Dr. Selik confided, was the prospect of the R.S.F. completely overrunning the city. “They will kill everyone,” he warned.
Aid workers and American officials share these grave concerns. The U.S. official indicated that the city could fall to the R.S.F. within weeks, or even sooner. Many fear a horrifying repetition of the massacre in El Geneina, in western Darfur, in late 2023, where R.S.F. fighters reportedly killed up to 15,000 people, according to the United Nations.
“We fear that as the battle for the city intensifies, the worst is yet to come,” stated Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, at the United Nations in New York last week. “We should not allow this to happen.”