“At least 12 people have been killed” today, and “17 were wounded when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shelled a hospital in Sudan’s North Darfur state,” reports Al Jazeera. “A female doctor and a nursing staff member were among the injured in the attack on the el-Fasher Hospital.” The Sudan Doctors Network said the RSF “directly bombed” the facility. It called the attack a “full-fledged war crime” that showed “a complete disregard for the lives of civilians and international laws that protect health facilities and their workers”.
In vain, it appealed to the international community and the United Nations Security Council to take action to stop RSF attacks on hospitals and residential neighborhoods.
“The hospital is one of the last functioning health facilities in the city, with most repeatedly bombed and forced to shut,” Al Jazeera says.
This was the second attack “on the hospital within 24 hours, after eight people were killed in an attack on a maternity ward on Tuesday.”
The RSF is trying to seize control of the city of El Fasher from Sudan’s army, and has taken control of most of the city.
Since April 2023, the civil war in Sudan between the RSF and the army has killed tens of thousands through shelling, bombing, and shooting, caused an even larger number of people to starve to death, forced 15 million to flee their homes, and pushed nearly 25 million people into acute hunger.
Over a hundred Sudanese refugees died in shipwrecks last month.
The RSF occupied most of Sudan’s capital Khartoum for over a year, and stole most of Khartoum’s copper wiring and destroyed its energy infrastructure. Because utilities can’t provide power, many residents are using solar panels to power their light bulbs and TVs. Temperatures in Khartoum reached 100 degrees today, but there is basically no air conditioning there.
Because the capital city of Khartoum is so ruined, Sudan’s officials moved to Port Sudan, which became Sudan’s de facto capital during the civil war. But earlier this year, the RSF militia sent drones to attack Port Sudan, targeting its fuel depots. “The explosions at the fuel depots left Port Sudan without the diesel used to power the pumps that bring up the groundwater.” As a result, many people there ended up thirsty and stinky.
Last month, “Dozens of people were killed in the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher” when the RSF “fired a missile into a mosque during morning prayers,” reported the New York Times.
