Paramilitary shelling of besieged Darfur city kills 10: Activists

Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and 20 wounded in paramilitary shelling of North Darfur’s besieged capital al-Fashir which hit the city’s main hospital and other areas on Wednesday, activists said.

The bombardment left “10 civilians killed and 20 injured...inside the city of al-Fashir and the Saudi Hospital,” said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups that have been coordinating aid across Sudan during 20 months of fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

RSF shelling of the same hospital on Friday killed nine people and forced it to close temporarily.

The local committee said that Friday’s bombardment “destroyed wards, pharmacies and the operating theatre at the hospital.”

A doctor, who requested anonymity for his safety, told AFP that the hospital’s emergency department was completely destroyed.

Al-Fashir, a city of some two million people which has been under paramilitary siege since May, has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war as the army battles to hold on to its last foothold in the vast Darfur region of western Sudan.

Last week, an air strike by the Sudanese military on a market in North Darfur killed more than 100 people, according to a pro-democracy lawyers’ group.

Nearly all of Darfur is now controlled by the RSF, which has also taken over swathes of the neighboring Kordofan region as well as much of central Sudan.

The regular army retains control of the north and east, while the capital Khartoum and its neighboring cities are a battleground between the warring parties,

The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 11 million, creating what the United Nations describes as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately bombing medical facilities and civilians, as well as deliberate attacks on residential areas.