Dr. Omar Selik simply wanted to be seen, to be acknowledged in his desperate circumstances.
After a grueling, hour-long interview detailing the horrors of life in the besieged city of El Fasher, conducted through a fragile satellite internet connection, he requested to turn on his camera. An exhausted, visibly war-weary face emerged, then brightened into a wide, genuine grin.
“This truly feels like a good day,” Dr. Selik exclaimed, a palpable wave of relief washing over him. “I feel human again.”
I couldn’t help but smile back.
For him, that brief, simple connection offered a fleeting escape from 500 agonizing days under siege. Dr. Selik, 43, was among the last remaining health workers in El Fasher, a city in western Darfur where a quarter-million residents faced constant threats from aerial attacks and the gnawing reality of starvation.
Only moments before, Dr. Selik had been openly weeping, recounting the tragic death of a pregnant woman in his care—a death that could have been prevented with basic medicines. Now, he lowered his camera, inviting me to see his lunch. What I saw was almost unbelievable.
He presented a plate of coarse, brown mush—typically animal fodder for camels and cows. This, he explained, had become the primary food source for most people in El Fasher, a grim testament to how both he, a doctor, and the very people he sought to save, had been stripped of their fundamental humanity.
That was why it felt so good to speak with someone on the outside, he said: “People are dying, and nobody is even watching.”
For me, too, this exchange brought a sharp, painful clarity. Since Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023, access to Darfur – the epicenter of a devastating famine and relentless siege – had been impossible. But through the impenetrable fog of war, I had found a voice whose raw, urgent words laid bare the conflict’s true depravity.
And then, just as suddenly, he was gone.
Days later, Dr. Selik left his home to attend dawn prayers at a nearby mosque. A missile slammed through the roof, exploding among the worshipers and killing about 75 people. Dr. Selik was tragically among the dead.
This incident painfully highlighted the destructive combination of advanced technology, unchecked brutality, and pervasive impunity defining a war that has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives. Witnesses reported the missile was fired by a drone, one of many allegedly supplied to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group besieging El Fasher. The United Arab Emirates, however, denies supporting any faction in the conflict.
For the city’s struggling residents, Dr. Selik’s death was yet another heartbreaking blow. “My heart is broken,” lamented Salwa Ahmed, a university lecturer who had sought refuge in his home.
Ms. Ahmed, like many others, expressed a profound sense of abandonment by the international community and deep skepticism that any real help would ever arrive. Yet, a faint glimmer of hope has emerged, spearheaded by President Trump’s senior adviser for Africa, Massad Boulos.
For weeks, Mr. Boulos has been actively negotiating with the RSF to facilitate the entry of international aid into El Fasher. Last week, he indicated that an aid convoy could be arriving “very, very soon.”
A high-ranking U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that the convoy would likely consist of approximately 45 U.N. trucks and might depart as early as next Monday. However, critical logistical details, particularly how aid would be fairly distributed once it reached the ravaged city, are still being finalized.
The U.S. official expressed concern about whether the RSF would permit the aid to reach areas controlled by the Sudanese military, their adversary—the very neighborhoods most severely impacted by the siege.
The State Department chose not to comment on the ongoing negotiations, deferring instead to Mr. Boulos’s previously released statements regarding his endeavors in Sudan.
The siege of El Fasher commenced in April 2024, initiated by the RSF—a paramilitary group largely composed of fighters from Darfur—in an effort to expel the Sudanese military from the vast region. The conflict escalated significantly in March, following the RSF’s expulsion from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.
While many others fled, Dr. Selik resolutely remained. “He told me, ‘I simply cannot abandon these people,'” recalled Omer Eltahir, a fellow doctor now residing in Ireland, who had spoken with Dr. Selik in July.
Dr. Selik dedicated himself to the city’s sole remaining operational hospital, a facility that had already endured 30 bombings. There, he swiftly retrained as a combat medic. He recounted the common, brutal injuries he treated: “Head trauma, chest trauma, punctured abdomens—anything caused by a bullet or a bomb.”
The crisis deepened this summer when RSF fighters constructed a formidable earthen wall, now spanning 42 miles, encircling El Fasher. Anyone attempting to cross it at night was shot dead.
Inside the hospital, food and medical supplies quickly dwindled. Surgeons resorted to using mosquito nets as makeshift gauze for operations, while cholera and malaria outbreaks ravaged the wards.
One day, at a small clinic he managed in the city’s northern sector, Dr. Selik encountered a group of Colombian mercenaries allied with the RSF. “They were speaking Spanish,” he recalled. Later, the bodies of Colombians killed in combat were brought to the hospital he worked at.
For their safety, Dr. Selik had sent his wife and children to Khartoum. However, his sister remained, only to perish with her three children in August, when a shell struck their home. “That’s just one story,” he shared, “In this city, there are countless others just like it.”
A Starlink terminal, gifted by a relative, offered a crucial lifeline to the outside world. Yet even through this connection, the conflict’s divisions reached him. On WhatsApp groups for Sudanese medics, Dr. Selik was disheartened by bitter disputes escalating along political or ethnic lines, as Dr. Eltahir recounted.
“People were resorting to hateful insults,” Dr. Eltahir stated. “Omar pleaded with them to stop.”
Crucially, the Starlink terminal also empowered him to appeal for help. Dr. Selik’s gravest fear, he confided, was the consequence if the RSF fully captured the city. “They will kill everyone,” he warned.
Aid organizations and American officials share these grave concerns. The city could fall to the RSF within weeks, or even sooner, according to the U.S. official. Many fear a repeat of the horrific massacre in El Geneina, western Darfur, in late 2023, where RSF fighters reportedly killed up to 15,000 people, as per United Nations accounts.
“We are gravely concerned that as the battle for El Fasher intensifies, the humanitarian situation will only worsen,” stated Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, during a recent address at the United Nations in New York. “We must not allow this tragedy to unfold further.”
Abdalrahman Altayeb contributed reporting from Khartoum, Sudan.
A correction was made on Oct. 1, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of a doctor. He is Omer Eltahir, not Eltayeb.
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