Drone Strike Kills Over 30 at Sudan Displacement Shelter

TDT | Manama

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

At least 30 people were killed in a drone strike targeting a displacement shelter in El-Fasher, North Darfur, on Saturday, according to local activists. The attack, reportedly carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), hit the Dar al-Arqam displacement centre located within a university compound, intensifying fears for the thousands trapped in the besieged city.

The El-Fasher resistance committee described the strike as a “massacre,” saying many victims — including children, women, and the elderly — were burned alive or crushed beneath rubble. Bodies are still believed to be trapped in underground shelters.

“The situation has gone beyond disaster and genocide inside the city, and the world remains silent,” the committee said in a statement, calling for urgent international intervention.

El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is the last remaining state capital in the vast region not yet under RSF control. The city has become a critical front in the ongoing war between the RSF and Sudan’s regular army, which erupted in April 2023. The conflict has already claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions, and left nearly 25 million people facing severe hunger.

Worsening Humanitarian Crisis

The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have repeatedly sounded alarms over the worsening situation. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was “appalled” by recent RSF attacks targeting civilians, including alleged ethnically motivated executions.

“They continue instead to kill, injure, and displace civilians, and to attack civilian objects — including hospitals and mosques — with total disregard for international law,” Türk said. “This must end.”

Local activists describe El-Fasher as “an open-air morgue,” with hundreds of thousands of residents enduring starvation and relentless airstrikes. After nearly 18 months of siege, the city has run out of most essentials. Families have been surviving on animal feed, now sold at exorbitant prices, while most soup kitchens have shut down due to food shortages.

Hospitals Under Fire

On Thursday, witnesses reported that an RSF artillery shell hit a mosque where displaced families had sought refuge, killing 13 people. Earlier in the week, RSF strikes on El-Fasher Hospital — one of the city’s few remaining health facilities — killed 20 more.

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus condemned the attacks and called for “immediate protection of health facilities and humanitarian access to support patients and medical staff.”

According to the UN, nearly 80% of residents in need of medical care in El-Fasher cannot access it due to the repeated bombing of hospitals. Last month alone, a single drone strike on a mosque killed at least 75 people.

More than one million people have fled El-Fasher since the start of the conflict — roughly 10% of all internally displaced Sudanese. The city’s population has dropped by about 62%, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Civilians who remain say they spend most of their time underground in makeshift bunkers, trying to survive as airstrikes and shelling continue daily.

“We are living like ghosts beneath the ground,” said one resident in a message shared by activists. “Every day we hear the bombs, and every day more people disappear.”