A paramilitary strike on a market in El-Fasher, Sudan, has left 18 people dead and dozens more injured, a medical source confirmed. The attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) occurred Thursday evening as the RSF and the Sudanese army continued to battle for control of the city, which is the capital of North Darfur state.
“We received 18 dead at the hospital last night,” said a source at El-Fasher Teaching Hospital, noting that some victims suffered severe shrapnel injuries, while others were burned. The medical source requested anonymity for safety reasons.
The violence comes amid growing international calls for a ceasefire. El-Fasher has been under siege by the RSF since May, and the situation is worsening as famine has been declared in the nearby Zamzam refugee camp. Reports of a full-scale assault last weekend prompted UN Secretary-General António Guterres to call for an immediate ceasefire. The RSF has continued shelling residential areas and the market, according to local resistance committees.
Sudan’s war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, with estimates ranging from 20,000, according to the World Health Organization, to as many as 150,000. US President Joe Biden urged nations to stop supplying arms to the rival generals, Sudanese Armed Forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces have faced repeated accusations of war crimes, with the RSF, descended from the notorious Janjaweed militia, being specifically accused of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Darfur, home to a quarter of Sudan’s population, has been particularly hard-hit by the conflict, with over half of the country’s 10 million internally displaced persons residing there.
In addition to the attack on El-Fasher, air strikes and shelling continued in the capital Khartoum on Thursday, with witnesses reporting further clashes on Friday. Fighting has also escalated in the agricultural state of Al-Jazira, south of Khartoum, with both paramilitary and army forces launching strikes.
The ongoing conflict has been marked by widespread human rights abuses, including systematic sexual violence, summary executions, and the looting of humanitarian aid. A recent report by UN Women warned that 6.7 million people in Sudan require services related to gender-based violence, a figure likely to be even higher now.
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable, with many eating “least and last” amid the looming famine, the report stated. There are growing fears that intensified fighting in Darfur could lead to further atrocities, particularly against displaced communities and ethnic minorities.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned on Thursday that if El-Fasher falls, there is a high risk of ethnically-targeted violations and abuses, including summary executions and sexual violence, by the RSF and allied militia.