Artillery shelling and air strikes killed at least 56 people across greater Khartoum on Saturday, the latest bloodshed in Sudan’s devastating war.
Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a battle for power since April 2023, with the army intensifying efforts to reclaim control of the capital this month.
RSF shelling killed 54 and injured 158 people at a busy market in army-controlled Omdurman, overwhelming the city’s Al-Nao Hospital.
“The shells hit in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why the victims and the wounded are so many,” one survivor told AFP.
The RSF denied carrying out the attack, which Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described as “utter carnage” at the hospital.
In central Khartoum, two civilians were killed and dozens more wounded in an air strike on an RSF-controlled area.
While the RSF has used drones in attacks, the regular army’s fighter jets maintain a monopoly on air strikes. Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
“Every possible space in the emergency room is filled with injured people,” MSF’s general secretary Chris Lockyear stated.
Al-Nao Hospital, one of the few still operating in Omdurman, has been repeatedly attacked and is running low on essential supplies.
