Deadly artillery shelling hits Omdurman market in Sudan, 56 killed

After artillery shelling and airstrikes hit an Omdurman vegetable market, at least 56 people have died in Sudan.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were to blame for the attack, according to the Health Ministry, which left at least 158 people injured.

Khalid al-Aleisir, minister of culture and government spokesperson, condemned the attack, saying the casualties included many women and children. He said the attack caused widespread destruction.

“This criminal act adds to the bloody record of this militia”, he said in a statement. It “violates international humanitarian law in a blatant way.”

Witnesses said the artillery shelling came from western Omdurman, where the RSF remains in control, and was supported by drones.

Further south in Omdurman, a resident reported to the AFP news agency that “rockets and artillery shells are falling” and that the RSF was simultaneously firing on several streets.

“The shells fell in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why there are so many victims and wounded”, one survivor added.

The nearby al-Nao Hospital’s staff claimed the number of casualties had increased and that the wounded were “still being brought there.” According to a hospital volunteer, “shrouds, blood donors, and stretchers to transport the wounded” are in urgent need.

According to a separate incident in Khartoum, an air attack on an RSF-controlled area claimed the local Emergency Response Room (ERR) was quoted by AFP as saying.

One of Sudan’s hundreds of volunteer committees coordinating emergency care is the ERR.

In April of this year, the Sudanese army and RSF fought over the integration of the two forces. It has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, displaced millions of people, and harmed the country’s half-dwellers.

The RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan Daglo pledged to retake the city’s capital from the army the day before Saturday’s attack.

“We expelled them]from Khartoum] before, and we will expel them again”, he told troops in a rare video address.

Sudan’s army retook several bases in Khartoum last month, including its pre-war headquarters, pushing the RSF increasingly into the city’s outskirts.

In Sudan, the capital has become a shell of its former self, and the violence has resulted in tens of thousands of fatalities.

According to the United Nations, at least 3. 6 million people have fled the capital and have been displaced by fighters throughout the entire neighbourhood.

At least 106, 000 people are also 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.