Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers group announced that at least 12 people were killed in a drone strike targeting a clinic in Nyala, a city controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Darfur region. The group blamed the Sudanese army for the attack.
The announcement came after a medical source reported that RSF shelling killed at least seven people and injured 71 others in the besieged city of El Fasher.
A source from Emergency Lawyers, which documents human rights violations during the ongoing conflict between the army and the RSF, said that the strike occurred on Saturday afternoon, hitting the Yashfin Clinic in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State.
The source, speaking anonymously, added that the death toll is expected to rise, with initial reports suggesting dozens of civilians and medical workers may have been killed.
There was no immediate comment from the Sudanese army. The medical source said the shelling of El Fasher also took place on Saturday.
Sudan has been engulfed in a bloody war since April 2023 between the army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan — the de facto ruler since the 2021 coup — and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti.” The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
Since May 2023, RSF forces have imposed a siege on El Fasher, the only major city in Darfur still under army control. After taking control of Khartoum in March, the RSF intensified its attacks on El Fasher and surrounding camps in an attempt to consolidate its grip over western Sudan.
The latest attack targeted densely populated neighborhoods in the city’s west, near the airport, which RSF forces are trying to seize.
A medical source at El Fasher Hospital, speaking anonymously, said the number of victims is likely higher, as many could not reach the hospital due to heavy shelling.
The source, contacted via satellite communication due to a blackout, said 22 of the wounded are in critical condition, most suffering shrapnel injuries.
A “Kill Box”
El Fasher, already on the brink of famine, has become cut off from the outside world without humanitarian aid. The few functioning hospitals have been repeatedly targeted, and RSF forces have seized the local police headquarters.
Satellite images from Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, released Thursday, revealed that the RSF has constructed more than 31 kilometers of elevated earthen barriers, effectively creating what the report described as a “kill box” around the city.
Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, told AFP that RSF forces have trapped the Sudanese army and its allied groups in an area of less than 12.9 square kilometers.
“It’s the smallest perimeter since the siege began,” he said.
For over a year, 300,000 civilians, as estimated by the United Nations, have been trapped, facing severe shortages of food and water, according to aid workers.
A Focal Point of Children’s Suffering
UNICEF warns that El Fasher has become a “focal point of children’s suffering.”
The UN has declared famine in the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps near El Fasher, warning that 40% of children are suffering from acute or severe acute malnutrition.
Many residents have resorted to eating animal fodder, while desperate escape attempts often end in death from cold, hunger, or violence.
Raymond said: “Life is collapsing. People are dying in poverty, under gunfire and shelling, or being killed while trying to flee.”
Satellite images from Yale also showed an expansion of graveyards over the past few months.
“The most alarming part,” Raymond noted, “is when there’s no one left to dig the graves anymore.”
The RSF originated from the Janjaweed militias unleashed by former president Omar al-Bashir more than two decades ago in Darfur, where atrocities were committed in the early 2000s.
According to the UN, the Darfur war from 2003 to 2020 left about 300,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced or refugees.
If the RSF captures El Fasher, it will have control over all five Darfur states.
Experts warn that the non-Arab Zaghawa tribe in the city could face the same fate as the non-Arab Masalit tribe in West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina, where UN experts reported that about 15,000 people, mostly Masalit, were ى commented: “
