CAIRO: A paramilitary group fighting against Sudan’s military shelled a besieged city in the western region of Darfur, killing at least 24 people, a medical group said Thursday.
The Rapid Support Forces shelled the densely populated areas of the central market and Awlad al-Reef neighborhood in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s civil war. The attack wounded 55 people, including five women, it said.
The city has been at the epicenter of fighting for over a year between the Sudanese military and the RSF. It is the military’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.
The RSF didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Sudan plunged into a civil war in April 2023 when simmering tension between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the northeastern African country.
Wednesday’s shelling was the latest in a series of attacks on el-Fasher and its surroundings, including two famine-hit camps for displaced people where RSF fighters ran riot in April in a major offensive that killed hundreds of people.
In August, at least 89 civilians were killed in RFS attacks in and around the city in a span of 10 days, including 16 who were summarily executed, according to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
The RSF besieged and turned it into “an epicentre of child suffering, with malnutrition, disease, and violence claiming young lives daily,” according to the United Nations children agency.
The siege left 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children, trapped inside the city and living in “desperate conditions” after being cut off from aid for more than 16 months, UNICEF said in a statement Wednesday. An estimated 6,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and are at risk of death, it said.
The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, forced more than 14 million to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country.
It has been marked by gross atrocities including ethnically motivated killings and rape, according to the United Nations and rights groups.
The International Criminal Court said it was investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces shell a besieged Darfur city, killing 24 and wounding 55, group says
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Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces shell a besieged Darfur city, killing 24 and wounding 55, group says
- A Sudanese medical group says a paramilitary group fighting against Sudan's military has shelled a city in Darfur, killing at least 24 people
- The Sudan Doctors Network says the Rapid Support Forces on Wednesday attacked the central market and a neighborhood in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur
Syria accuses Hezbollah of firing shells into its territory
- “The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA
DAMASCUS: Syria said Iran-backed Hezbollah had fired artillery shells into its territory from Lebanon overnight, state media reported on Tuesday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shia movement.
Syrian army officials said artillery shells fired from Lebanon landed near the town of Serghaya, west of Damascus, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.
The army accused Hezbollah of targeting Syrian army positions, telling the news agency it observed Hezbollah reinforcements at the Syrian-Lebanese border.
“The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have clashed in eastern Lebanon in recent days, and Israel has carried out strikes across Lebanon, including on the capital Beirut.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of working to “collapse” the state, while the head of the group’s parliamentary bloc said it had “no other option... than the option of resistance.”
Hezbollah provided military support to former Syrian president Bashar Assad, who was overthrown in December 2024 by an Islamist coalition hostile to the pro-Iranian Shia movement.
Since then, its supply routes from Syria have been cut off, and Lebanese and Syrian authorities are trying to combat smuggling across the porous border between the two countries.
