El Fasher had been under siege for more than 500 days. In May 2024, the UN warned it teetered on the “brink of famine”. No aid has entered since. Somehow, against all odds, El Fasher has not fallen. Its defenders – a hotchpotch of volunteers like Abdelghaffa, rebels such as Bakhit and a depleted infantry battalion – have been shoehorned into a shrinking slice of the pulverised city with 260,000 trapped residents, half of them children.

Yet aid has not entered for nearly 18 months.The evidence indicates a key US and UK ally intervened to effectively derail lifesaving humanitarian aid entering El Fasher. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) intruded at a critical stage; hundreds of children are believed to have since died from starvation in the city.

The UAE, repeatedly accused of supplying arms to the RSF, denies it supports the group. Informed sources monitoring the crisis claim that one of the longest urban sieges of modern warfare has only been possible because of such backing. “The UAE is the lifeline to the siege. Without its support, the RSF would have called it off.”