Journalists in El-Fasher are trapped under siege, enduring violence, hunger, and relentless bombardment alongside the people whose lives they report on.

Seven journalists (both male and female) interviewed by CPJ by phone — all currently or recently based in the city — described being cut off from food and aid, amid relentless shelling. Some were also targeted by RSF fighters with sexual violence and arbitrary detention because of their reporting. One said RSF fighters descended on her El-Fasher neighborhood in September, going door to door. When they entered her home and discovered she was a journalist, they ordered her family to leave, and three armed men beat and gang-raped her. “This was not random violence. This was punishment because of my work,” she told CPJ, on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals. Another journalist who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisal, said she was detained by the RSF for 45 days in April and May 2025 for reporting on the siege. “I was beaten, tortured, and threatened. They wanted me to stop reporting. It was some people who knew me who ratted me out to RSF. Informants are everywhere. They give journalists up in exchange for protection or money,” she said. “I did eventually take a break from reporting, but funnily enough it wasn’t because of their intimidation, but rather because I was collapsing due to hunger,” she added. “Everyone is afraid to work,” Lana Awad Hassan, who escaped El-Fasher six months ago after being shot in the leg by the RSF, told CPJ. “Even if you write a good report, you don’t publish it under your name. Both the RSF and the Sudanese army target journalists, but that does not stop us!” “Sometimes you have to stop working, not because you want to, but because you can’t,” she said, describing how she collapsed from anemia. “I became too weak to walk.” “We can no longer cover the war live. We write, and when things calm down, we can publish, but the news is never timely. This is a tactic to silence us and keep El-Fasher away from the news,”