Seven Killed, 71 Wounded as RSF Launches Fiercest Assault on Besieged Sudanese City

KHARTOUM: At least seven people were killed and 71 others wounded after Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched heavy shelling on El-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur still under army control, a medical source confirmed on Sunday.

The attack, which struck several western neighborhoods near the city’s airport and the famine-hit Abu Shouk displacement camp, marked the fiercest offensive yet in the RSF’s months-long siege of the city.

The source, speaking anonymously for safety reasons, warned that the true death toll was likely higher, as many of the wounded were unable to reach hospitals due to the intensity of shelling. At least 22 of the injured remain in critical condition, mostly suffering from shrapnel wounds.

El-Fasher has become the most violent frontline in Sudan’s civil war, which erupted in April 2023 between the army and the RSF. The paramilitary group, which traces its roots to the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, has escalated artillery barrages and ground incursions in recent weeks, targeting densely populated areas, the city’s few remaining hospitals, and critical infrastructure.

Satellite analysis by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab last week revealed the RSF had built more than 31 kilometers of earth barriers around El-Fasher, creating what it described as a “literal kill box.” The lab also documented damage to the city’s water authority, threatening access to clean drinking water for an estimated 300,000 besieged residents.

Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said RSF forces had confined the Sudanese army and its allied militias to less than five square kilometers, the smallest defensive zone since the siege began.

“The pattern of life is ending. They are dying in poverty, crossfire, and bombardment, and they’re being killed as they’re trying to leave,” Raymond told AFP, warning that cemeteries around the city are rapidly expanding.

The humanitarian situation is dire: famine has already been declared in nearby displacement camps, while nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher are acutely malnourished, according to UN estimates. Residents have reportedly resorted to eating animal fodder to survive.

If the RSF succeeds in capturing El-Fasher, it would control all five Darfur state capitals, cementing its dominance in the region. Analysts warn this could trigger mass atrocities against the city’s non-Arab Zaghawa population, echoing massacres in El-Geneina last year where UN investigators said up to 15,000 people were killed, mostly from the Massalit tribe.

Both the RSF and the Sudanese army face accusations of war crimes, but the RSF has been repeatedly singled out for genocide, sexual violence, and systematic looting.

“The Janjaweed are about to win the entire genocide that began in the early 21st century,” Raymond said. “And the world isn’t going to do anything about it.”