CAIRO: The main hospital in Sudan’s Al-Fashir city has been attacked by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and put out of service, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which supports the facility, told Reuters on Sunday.
The city, in the Darfur region of northwestern Sudan, is home to more than 1.8 million residents and displaced people, and is the latest front in a war between the Sudanese army and the RSF which began in April 2023.
The RSF, which has taken over the capital Khartoum and most of western Sudan, is also seeking to advance further within the center, as United Nations agencies say the people of Sudan are at “imminent risk of famine.”
Some 130,000 people have fled their homes in Al-Fashir as a result of the fighting in April and May, the United Nations has said.
The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.
South Hospital was the only hospital in Al-Fashir capable of handling daily mass casualty events, according to MSF.
From May 10 to June 6, some 1,315 wounded arrived at the facility and 208 people have died there, but many people are not able to reach the hospital due to the fighting, MSF told Reuters.
“It is outrageous that the RSF opened fire inside the hospital. This is not an isolated incident — staff and patients have endured attacks on the facility for weeks from all sides, but opening fire inside a hospital crosses a line,” said Michel Lacharite, head of MSF emergencies in a statement.
The hospital had previously started evacuating patients after being impacted by fighting three times since May 25, and the remaining patients and staff were able to flee.
The Al-Fashir Emergency Response Room, a volunteer group, said on Sunday that several people were killed and injured in the attack and that medicine and an ambulance were looted.
An eyewitness told Reuters he saw people evacuating the hospital, and other eyewitnesses said the RSF had launched missiles at the hospital and its vicinity.
A separate attack on Saturday on the Abu Shouk camp to the north of the city impacted another medical center, injured more than 30, and killed at least two, the camp committee and a volunteer said.
A report last week from The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab said some 40 settlements outside the city have been struck with arson attacks since March.
Local residents have blamed the RSF for the attacks.
Leaving the city has proven dangerous, as residents say those fleeing have been attacked and even killed on the main RSF-controlled road out of the city.
Most of those leaving have taken routes either south to Zamzam camp, or west to the Tawila and Jebel Mara areas, which are controlled by armed groups, including the faction of the Sudan Liberation Army headed by Abdelwahid Mohamed Nour, an aid worker and residents said.
Sudan’s Al-Fashir main hospital shut after RSF attack, aid group says
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Sudan’s Al-Fashir main hospital shut after RSF attack, aid group says
- The RSF, which has taken over the capital Khartoum and most of western Sudan, is also seeking to advance further within the center
Soleimani warned Al-Assad about ‘spy’ Luna Al-Shibl: Al-Majalla
LONDON: The late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani confronted Syria’s National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk in late 2019 after seeing Luna Al-Shibl leaving his office. Al-Majalla magazine claims its reporters reviewed a document containing the full Arabic transcript of their exchange.
Soleimani reportedly asked, “Who is this?” and Mamlouk replied, “She is Louna Al-Shibl, the president’s adviser.”
The Quds Force commander pressed further: “I know, I know… but who is she really? Where did she work?”
According to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, he said her former salary was “ten thousand dollars,” compared with her current salary of “five hundred thousand Syrian pounds,” before asking: “Does it make sense for someone to leave ten thousand dollars for five hundred thousand pounds? She is a spy.”
Both Soleimani and Maher Al-Assad, commander of the Syrian army’s powerful Fourth Division, had warned the ousted president’s inner circle about Al-Shibl, Al-Majalla reported.
‘Suspicious’ car crash
On July 2, 2024, Al-Shibl was involved in what officials described as a traffic accident on the Damascus-Dimas highway. She was hospitalized and died four days later.
But Al-Majalla reported that photos of her armored BMW showed only minor damage, raising immediate questions among those close to the case.
Eyewitnesses told the magazine that the crash was intentional. One said, “a car approached and rammed her vehicle,” and before her bodyguard could exit, “a man attacked her and struck her on the back of the head,” causing paralysis that led to her death.
She was first taken to Al-Saboura clinic, then transferred to Al-Shami Hospital. Several senior regime-linked figures, including businessman Mohammed Hamsho and an aide to Maher Al-Assad, were present when her condition deteriorated. One witness told Al-Majalla that when her bodyguard tried to explain what had happened, “he was arrested immediately in front of the others.”
The presidency later issued a brief statement announcing her death. Her funeral was attended only by a handful of officials. Then president Al-Assad did not attend.
