A volunteer rescue network in Sudan reported that 28 civilians lost their lives on Sunday when a fuel station in a paramilitary-controlled part of Khartoum was struck by shelling.
The Sudanese army, locked in a brutal conflict with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, has been advancing towards the capital in an effort to wrest control of Khartoum from the paramilitaries.
According to the South Belt Emergency Response Room, a youth-led volunteer group, “28 people were confirmed dead” in the attack, with “the number of injured reaching 37, including 29 burns cases” and others suffering from shrapnel wounds.
The conflict, which erupted between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo—once his deputy—has devastated Khartoum. Early in the war, the RSF successfully pushed the army out of much of the capital. The government loyal to Burhan has since relocated to Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast, where the army maintains control.
The ongoing war has caused immense human suffering, claiming tens of thousands of civilian lives and displacing over 11 million people. The United Nations has described the crisis as the world’s largest displacement emergency.
In late November, the Sudanese army announced it had regained control of Sinja, the capital of Sennar state, south of Khartoum. This marked a significant victory, as Sinja is strategically important, lying on a critical road linking army-held areas in eastern and central Sudan.
While the army seeks to reclaim territory, the RSF has consolidated its hold on the western Darfur region, ravaged the agricultural heartlands of central Sudan, and pushed into the army-dominated southeast, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian crisis.
