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KHARTOUM: Shelling by Sudanese paramilitaries of the besieged Darfur city of El-Fasher killed 13 civilians on Thursday and Friday, including four children, a medical source said.
The two-day bombardment hit residential areas in the Al-Nasr neighborhood and the city’s central market, the source at El-Fasher hospital said.
“A number of shells struck civilian homes,” the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity for their own safety.
In recent weeks, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have been at war with the regular army since April 2023, have stepped up their efforts to take El-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur not under their control.
The current offensive is the RSF’s most intense since the siege began and comes after the army recaptured the capital Khartoum earlier this year.
In a statement on Friday, the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups documenting atrocities in the war, described scenes of “terror” as RSF fighters stormed western districts of the city on Thursday morning.
The paramilitaries carried off an unknown number of residents to undisclosed locations, the group added.
Satellite imagery released on Thursday by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab documented the scale of the RSF bombardment of the city’s adjacent Abu Shouk displaced persons’ camp.
The images showed more than 50 visible munition impacts or destroyed structures inside the camp between August 30 and September 10, including 22 strikes on the camp’s main market.
The UN fact-finding mission for Sudan reported this week that more than 300 civilians have been killed in Abu Shouk alone since the RSF siege began.
It accused the RSF of committing “myriad crimes against humanity” during its campaign in El-Fasher, but said both sides have shelled civilian areas.
With humanitarian aid cut off, the only escape from the city is a perilous 70 kilometer (45 mile) trek to the town of Tawila, which is held by ethnic minority rebels who have largely stayed out of the fighting.
French medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said more than 650 injured people had reached its hospital in Tawila since mid-August.
Many survivors made the journey “on foot, bleeding from gunshot wounds and severe whippings,” said MSF’s project coordinator in Tawila, Sylvain Penicaud.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and driven more than 14 million from their homes.
The vast western region of Darfur has been a major battleground as it was in a previous conflict in the 2000s.
The UN Security Council on Friday extended its embargo on arms shipments to Darfur by a year, prolonging a measure in place since 2005 that has seen frequent reported violations.