PORTU SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitary forces shelled North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher on Saturday, killing at least 17 civilians and injuring 25 others, a medical source said.

Speaking anonymously for safety reasons, the source at El-Fasher Hospital said these numbers only account for those who reached the hospital, adding that others were buried by their families, unable to access medical centers due to ongoing security challenges.
Since May last year, El-Fasher has been under siege by the Rapid Support Forces, which have been battling Sudan’s army since April 2023.
According to the local resistance committee — one of hundreds of volunteer groups documenting atrocities during the conflict — the attack involved heavy artillery shelling by the RSF across several residential neighborhoods.

The bombardment began early on Saturday and continued well into the afternoon, the committee said in a statement, describing the assault as one of the deadliest recent attacks on the city, resulting in numerous casualties and severe damage to property and infrastructure.
A few kilometers to the north, paramilitaries also shelled the famine-stricken Abu Shouk displacement camp, killing several civilians, including a community leader, and injuring at least 20 people, according to the camp’s Emergency Response Room, which has been coordinating frontline aid throughout the war.
Following the RSF’s loss of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, to the army in March, El-Fasher and nearby displacement camps have been targeted in renewed attacks.
In April, a major RSF offensive on the nearby Zamzam camp displaced tens of thousands, many of whom sought refuge in El-Fasher.
Fighting has also intensified in the neighboring Kordofan region, with the International Organization for Migration reporting that around 3,000 people were displaced from the town of Kadugli in South Kordofan in just five days last week due to ongoing violence.
The war between Sudan’s army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and triggered what the UN calls the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The conflict has effectively divided the country, with the army controlling the north, east, and center while the RSF holds much of Darfur and parts of the south.
Last year, famine was declared in three camps near El-Fasher, including Abu Shouk and Zamzam. 
The UN has warned that the crisis would extend into the city itself by May, although a lack of data has so far prevented an official declaration of famine.

This month, the World Food Programme said thousands of families trapped in El-Fasher are at “risk of starvation.”
According to the WFP, prices for staple foods like sorghum and wheat — used to make traditional flatbreads and porridge — are up to 460 percent higher in El-Fasher compared to other parts of Sudan.
Markets and clinics have been attacked, while community kitchens that once fed displaced families have largely shut down due to a lack of supplies, the UN agency added.
Nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher are now acutely malnourished, with 11 percent suffering from severe acute malnutrition, according to UN figures.
Malnutrition has already claimed 63 lives — mostly women and children — in just one week in El-Fasher, a senior health official said last week.
At the city’s largest community kitchen, organizers say children and women arriving show clear signs of malnutrition, including swollen bellies and sunken eyes.
The humanitarian crisis is being compounded by a cholera outbreak that is sweeping through overcrowded displacement camps.
Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said on Thursday that Sudan is experiencing its worst cholera epidemic in years, fueled by the ongoing conflict.
Over the past year, close to 100,000 cholera infections have been recorded, resulting in more than 2,400 deaths. 
The outbreak’s current epicenter is in Tawila, roughly 70 kilometers west of El-Fasher.
MSF said that cholera has claimed at least 40 lives in Sudan’s Darfur region just in one week.