At least 57 people, including 22 women and 17 children, were killed when Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked a displacement shelter in the besieged city of El-Fasher in North Darfur, according to a Sudanese medical advocacy group.
The Sudan Doctors’ Network reported on Saturday that the RSF, locked in a bitter conflict with the Sudanese army, targeted the Dar al-Arqam displacement centre near Omdurman Islamic University. “Most of the victims sustained serious injuries as a result of deliberate missile and artillery shelling by drones and heavy weapons,” the group said in a statement on X, noting that three infants were among the dead.
The attack, which took place late Friday, also wounded at least 21 people, including seven women and five children. “Most of the wounded suffered serious injuries,” the Sudan Doctors’ Network added, stressing the intensity of the bombardment on civilian areas.
Local activists described the strike as a “massacre.” The El-Fasher Resistance Committee said at least 60 people were killed. “Children, women and the elderly were killed in cold blood, and many were completely burned,” the group said, urging international intervention. “The situation has gone beyond disaster and genocide inside the city, and the world remains silent.”
The assault marks the latest in an escalating pattern of RSF strikes on civilian zones in El-Fasher, now well into the third year of Sudan’s brutal civil war. Between October 5 and 8 alone, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights documented at least 53 civilian deaths across the city, including women and children.
El-Fasher remains the last major city held by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in western Darfur and has faced increased RSF attacks since the army retook Khartoum in March. The RSF has clashed with SAF for control of Sudan since April 2023, after a fallout between the two generals leading both forces. The conflict has triggered what humanitarian organisations describe as the world’s largest humanitarian emergency, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions displaced both internally and externally.
Roughly 260,000 people remain trapped in El-Fasher, while the city’s population has dropped by 62 percent from 1.11 million before the war to just 413,454, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Residents have adapted to the relentless shelling by spending much of the day in makeshift shelters built around their homes. “The situation is extremely bad,” said one individual, speaking from inside the city.
“Generally, the RSF have relied on air strikes to force civilians out of the city so they can take it over,” said Mohamed Badawi, a human rights activist with the Uganda-based African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, which monitors Sudan’s conflict.
