Sudan paramilitaries shell besieged Darfur city, killing 23, says activists

Supporters of the Sudanese armed popular resistance, which backs the army, ride on trucks in Gedaref in eastern Sudan on March 3, 2024 amid the ongoing conflict in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries. The war-torn country of Sudan is currently ravaged by internal fighting between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (Photo by AFP)

Shelling by Sudanese paramilitaries killed at least 23 people on Saturday in the besieged Darfur city of El-Fasher, activists said.

The capital of North Darfur state is the largest city in the vast western region not yet under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been battling the regular army for more than a year and have laid siege to El-Fasher since May.

The El-Fasher Resistance Committee said in a statement published on its Facebook page that “deliberate bombing” by the paramilitary forces resulted in “23 martyrs,” all civilians, and 60 wounded.

RSF shelling of El-Fasher last week killed at least 65 people, said the committee, one of hundreds across Sudan that used to organize pro-democracy protests and have coordinated frontline aid since the war began in April last year.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said that by late June, at least 260 people had been killed in the fighting in El-Fasher.

The war, which pits the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, against the army  headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has killed tens of thousands of people with some estimates as high as 150,000, according to United States envoy Tom Perriello.

The United Nations says Sudan faces the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, with more than 10 million forced to flee internally or abroad.

The conflict has ravaged the country’s infrastructure, put more than three-quarters of health facilities out of service and sparked warnings of famine.

A UN-backed assessment published Thursday found that “famine is ongoing” in Zamzam, a displacement camp outside El-Fasher that hosts hundreds of thousands of people.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes including deliberately targeting civilians.