Deadly drone attack targets hospital in Sudan’s Darfur

In one of the last remaining hospitals in the Sudanese Darfur region, a drone attack has claimed the lives of dozens of patients.

The Saudi Hospital was targeted by a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) drone “a few weeks ago,” according to medical sources who spoke to AFP news agency.

Friday’s attack killed at least 30 patients in the emergency department, the report added. &nbsp, Regional governor Mini Minawi posted graphic images of bloodied bodies on his X account on Saturday, saying that the attack “exterminated” more than 70 patients, including women and children.

Since April 2023, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF have been at war.

The RSF has besieged el-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, since May, but army-aligned armed groups have repeatedly pushed its fighters back, preventing them from claiming the city.

In El-Fasher, medical organizations have been rampantly attacking healthcare facilities. This month, Doctors Without Borders declared that Saudi Hospital was “the only public hospital with surgical capacity still standing.”

Across the country, up to 80 percent of healthcare facilities have been forced out of service, according to official figures.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions have been driven from their homes, and the majority of the population has been in hunger as a result of the conflict that broke out between the two forces.

According to a UN-backed assessment, famine has already swept the area around El-Fasher, including three displacement camps in Zamzam, Abu Shouk, and Al-Salam, and is expected to spread to five additional areas, including the city itself, by May.

The Sudanese army claimed to have broken an RSF headquarters’ ongoing siege of Khartoum following the hospital’s attack in El-Fasher.

In a statement, the army said troops in Bahri]Khartoum North] and Omdurman had “merged with our forces stationed at the General Command of the Armed Forces”.

Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, comprises three main cities – Khartoum, Omdurman, and Bahri – separated by the Nile River and collectively referred to as the triangular capital.

The army added that it had “expelled” the RSF from the strategically important al-Jili oil refinery north of the capital, the country’s largest.