Drone strike kills at least 15 at El-Fasher market as Sudan’s Darfur conflict intensifies

A drone strike by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed at least 15 people at a busy market in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, aid workers and a local group reported.

The attack comes just days after the RSF allegedly struck a mosque in the city, killing at least 70 people, including worshippers and three medical staff.

The drone strike also injured 12, an aid worker with Emergency Response Rooms (ERR) told The Associated Press on Wednesday, citing doctors and ERR team members on the ground. The worker spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from the RSF.

The ERR said the attack occurred Monday night, while el-Fasher’s Resistance Committees—a network of local activists monitoring the conflict—stated on Facebook that it happened early Tuesday. The timing could not be independently verified by AP.

The Resistance Committees described the strike as part of a series of daily massacres by the RSF aimed at “bringing the city to its knees and breaking the will of its residents.”

The RSF has not mentioned the market strike on its Telegram channel but claimed its fighters are advancing in el-Fasher and said it was evacuating “hundreds of civilians,” without providing evidence.

The RSF didn’t mention the incident on their Telegram channel but said that its fighters are making advances in el-Fasher, and claimed it was evacuating “hundreds of civilians from el-Fasher,” without providing evidence.

The fight between the RSF and the military erupted in 2023 and soon turned into a civil war that enveloped the country, killing at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, displacing as many as 12 million others. Over 24 million people are acutely food insecure, according to the World Food Programme.

El-Fasher is the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region. Fighting between the two sides intensified in recent months and hundreds of civilians were killed in RSF attacks in the area since Apr. 10, according to a Friday report by the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.

Some areas in Darfur currently face a dire situation, impacting people’s access to healthcare, food, and clean water, according to aid organizations. The number of reported cholera cases is increasing and more than 3,000 people across all of Sudan have died from the illness over the last 14 months of civil war, the U.N. health agency said Tuesday.

The current outbreak of the bacterial infection caused by contaminated food or water has spread to all 18 states in the war-torn country after it was declared an outbreak since July of last year, the WHO said.

Both warring sides have been accused of committing atrocities, including ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence against civilians, including children.

With inputs from agencies