RSF attacks main hospital in Sudan's Al-Fasher, says health official

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked the main still-functioning hospital in Al-Fasher, in Sudan’s North Darfur state on Friday, killing nine people and injuring 20, according to a local health official and activists, Reuters reports.

A drone fired four missiles at the hospital overnight, destroying wards, waiting areas and other facilities, said state Health Minister, Ibrahim Khatir, and the Al-Fasher resistance committee, a pro-democracy group that monitors violence in the area.

Images they shared showed debris scattered over hospital beds and damaged ceilings and walls. The RSF says it does not target civilians and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sudan’s army and the RSF have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months, triggering a profound humanitarian crisis in which more than 12 million people have been driven from their homes and UN agencies have struggled to deliver relief.

Al-Fasher is one of the most active frontlines between the RSF and the Sudanese army and its allies, which are fighting to maintain a last foothold in the Darfur region. Observers fear that an RSF victory there could bring ethnic retribution as happened in West Darfur last year.

READ: ICC suspect ordered murder and rape in Sudan’s Darfur, judges hear

Nearby Zamzam camp, where experts say a famine is occurring among a population of more than half a million people, has also come under RSF artillery fire over the last two weeks, forcing thousands to leave the camp.

The army has responded with air strikes that have targeted Al-Fasher and surrounding towns. This week, it staged one of the deadliest attacks in the war, killing more than 100 in the town of Kabkabiya.

At the UN Security Council earlier this week, Sudan accused the United Arab Emirates of carrying out drone attacks for the RSF from Amdjarass in Chad, targeting Al-Fasher and other cities in the north of Sudan, as well as supplying weaponry and training.

The UAE denies supporting the RSF and says it only carries out flights carrying humanitarian aid for Sudanese refugees in Chad.

Hospitals in Al-Fasher have frequently come under fire in the war, leaving Saudi Hospital the last major functioning facility in the area.

The same has happened across the country’s warzones. In the Khartoum state, nearly half of the hospitals have been damaged, severely hampering access to medical care, according to a report this week by the Sudanese American Physicians Association and the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab.

Sudan: nearly half of hospitals in Khartoum damaged in first 500 days of conflict