Scores killed in attacks across greater Khartoum

According to medical sources and Sudanese activists, at least 56 people were killed in attacks in the Khartoum area on Saturday. Shelling and airstrikes by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group hit a busy market in Omdurman, overwhelming the city's al-Nau Hospital, where at least 54 people died.

A survivor told AFP, "The shells hit the center of the vegetable market, which is why there were so many casualties." A local Emergency Response Room (ERR) stated that airstrikes in a Rapid Support Forces-controlled area of Khartoum, across the Nile, resulted in the deaths of two civilians and dozens of injuries.

The Rapid Support Forces have been engaged in conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023. This fighting has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, displaced millions, and left half the population facing hunger. Last week, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a drone attack by the Rapid Support Forces on the main hospital in El Fasher, a besieged town in western Sudan, killed 70 people and injured 19.

Following Friday's attack, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X, stating, "As the only functioning hospital in El Fasher, the Saudi Hospital provides services including maternity, internal medicine, surgery and pediatrics, as well as a nutrition stabilization center." He also added that "the hospital was full of patients receiving treatment at the time of the attack."

While the WHO chief did not specify who was responsible for the attack, local officials blamed the Rapid Support Forces. The Governor of Darfur, Mini Minawi, stated on X that a Rapid Support Forces drone attacked the emergency room of the hospital in the North Darfur capital, killing patients, including women and children. The Rapid Support Forces launched the attack on El Fasher after a deadline they issued for Sudanese forces and their allies to withdraw from the North Darfur capital expired.