Sudan: El Fasher mosque and hospital attacks leave at least 20 dead

On Thursday, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, reported that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group reportedly opened fire on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Saudi hospital and a local mosque, where displaced families had sought refuge. 

The Saudi hospital “is the last functioning medical facility in the city, serving thousands of war-affected people,” the agency said in a tweet.

Healthcare under attack

OCHA “strongly condemned” the attacks and others carried out recently by the RSF in El Fasher – the last bastion under the control of the government in Khartoum in the region, where famine was declared last year. 

“Civilians must never be attacked,” OCHA said. “We once again echo the UN Secretary-General’s call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.”

The UN reproductive health agency, UNFPA, said Tuesday’s attack targeted the maternity ward, killing 12 people and injuring many others, including patients and health workers.

“This marks the third attack on the hospital in one week,” UNFPA said, calling for “an immediate end to hostilities, protection of civilians and health facilities, and safe, unhindered humanitarian access to deliver lifesaving aid to those in desperate need.”

People in El Fasher “are trapped, terrified and cut off from aid, and their last lifeline for medical care is under threat,” UN Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in the daily media briefing from New York.

“And it goes without saying that the targeting of hospitals is to be condemned and never acceptable.”

City under siege

El Fasher has been under siege for more than a year. 

Over the past few months, the RSF – formerly the Janjaweed militias responsible for atrocities against non-Arab communities in Darfur in the early 2000s – have intensified artillery shelling and drone attacks in efforts to capture the city. 

Beyond Darfur, Sudan remains engulfed in a civil war that has raged since April 2023. It has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 30 million people in need of assistance.

Around 12 million people have been displaced, including over four million who have escaped to neighbouring countries such as Chad, the Central African Republic and beyond.

Conflict, clashes and displacement

The fighting is now compounded by communal clashes. On 7 and 8 October, field teams from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded some 250 people displaced from the town of Kernoi, near the border with Chad, following an intra-communal conflict between members of the Zaghawa tribe, one of the four major non-Arab communities in the region.

Civilians continue to flee El Fasher and nearby Zamzam camp, where the population has plummeted by 70 per cent in the past six months.  

Humanitarians estimate that the number of people residing in the area has fallen from 700,000 in March to 200,000 in September. 

Thousands of families have fled to nearby towns such as Tawila, which now hosts some 600,000 displaced people.

While the UN and partners remain committed to supporting the people of El Fasher and across Sudan as a whole, Mr. Dujarric stressed the need for safe humanitarian access, greater protection of civilians, and an immediate humanitarian pause in and around the city.