At least 56 people were killed on Saturday in airstrikes and artillery shelling in the greater Khartoum, according to a doctor and activists.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting for control of the capital, which has increased this month.
RSF shelling killed 54 and injured 158 people at a busy market in army-controlled Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, on Saturday, overwhelming the city’s Al-Nao Hospital, according to a medical source and the health ministry.
One survivor told AFP, “The shells hit in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why there are so many victims and wounded.”
The RSF denied carrying out the attack.
One of the hundreds of volunteer organizations coordinating emergency care across Sudan, the local Emergency Response Room reported that two civilians were killed and dozens of others were hurt in an air strike on an RSF-controlled area across the Nile.
The regular armed forces’ fighter jets are the only ones using air strikes, despite the RSF’s use of drones in attacks, including one on Saturday.
Both the RSF and the army have been accused of repeatedly shelling residential areas and targeting civilians.
Metres away from hospital ,
In addition to killing tens of thousands of people, the war has uprooted more than 12 million and decimated Sudan’s fragile infrastructure, forcing most health facilities out of service.
According to a volunteer at Al-Nao Hospital, the hospital is experiencing severe shortages of “shrouds, blood donors, and stretchers to transport the wounded.”
The hospital, one of Omdurman’s last medical facilities, has been repeatedly attacked.
According to the Sudanese doctors ‘ union, one shell fell “just metres away from Al-Nao hospital” on Saturday.
The union called on nearby nurses and doctors to visit the hospital to address the “severe shortage of medical staff,” claiming that the majority of the victims were children and women.
The army launched an offensive across central Sudan in the capital, reclaiming Wad Madani in Al-Jazira state before heading for Khartoum, just weeks after the army began its assault there.
The RSF has since remained in control of the road between Wad Madani and Khartoum, but on Saturday an army-allied militia claimed control of the towns of Tamboul, Rufaa, Al-Hasaheisa, and Al-Hilaliya, some 125 kilometres (77 miles) southeast of the capital.
Abu Aqla Kaykal, who deposed from the RSF last year and is now on the army’s side, is the leader of the Sudan Shield Forces. He has been accused of committing atrocities against civilians both during his time there and now.
The army maintains its effective split, with the RSF controlling the country’s east and north and the RSF controlling nearly all of Darfur’s vast western region and large portions of the south.
After months of stalemate in greater Khartoum, the army has broken RSF sieges on several bases in the capital this month, including its headquarters, pushing the paramilitary increasingly into the city’s outskirts.
Witnesses said Saturday’s bombardment of Omdurman came from the city’s western outskirts, where the RSF remains in control.
A resident of a neighborhood in southern Ontario reported rocket and artillery fire on the city’s streets.
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Counter-offensive
RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo vowed to retake the capital from the army the day before Saturday’s bombardment.
“We expelled them (from Khartoum) before, and we will expel them again”, he told troops in a rare video address.
Greater Khartoum has been reduced to a shell of its former self after nearly 22 months of fighting between the army and the RSF.
Between April 2023 and June 2024, according to an investigation by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 26, 000 people died in the capital alone.
According to the United Nations, at least 3. 6 million civilians have fled while fighters have taken control of entire neighborhoods.
People who were unable to or unwilling to leave have reported frequent artillery fires on residential areas and widespread hunger in besieged neighbourhoods that were blocked by opposing forces.
At least 106, 000 people are estimated to be suffering from famine in Khartoum, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, with a further 3.2 million experiencing crisis levels of hunger.
Famine has been declared in five different countries, the majority of which are in Darfur, and is anticipated to spread to five more by the end of May.
Former US president Joe Biden’s administration sanctioned Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan before he left office, accusing him of attacking schools, markets, and hospitals with starvation as a means of war.
The RSF commander was given the label a week after the State Department said his forces had committed “genocide” against non-Arab minority groups in Darfur.
Source: Channels TV
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