A drone strike in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher struck a mosque, killing multiple worshippers. The attack occurred in the city’s Al Daraja neighborhood, where residents fleeing the famine-stricken Abu Shouk displaced persons’ camp had sought refuge from the advancing Rapid Support Forces (RSF). A post from a rescue agency confirmed that “the bodies were retrieved from the rubble of the mosque.” El-Fasher is the last major city in the vast western region still under the control of the regular army, and the RSF has laid siege to it since May of last year. The RSF has been engaged in a devastating war with the regular army since April 2023.
New Title: Fears of Ethnic Killings Amid Humanitarian Crisis
The UN human rights office expressed concern that the attack may have involved ethnically-motivated killings, which have increasingly accompanied the fighting with a “devastating impact on the civilian population.” Residents of Al Daraja searched through the wreckage to find and bury the dead, but reported that they had run out of shrouds. One resident, using a satellite internet connection to bypass a communications blackout, said, “We had to use plastic bags.” He added, “There are no more shrouds in the city after all this siege and death.” The RSF’s siege has caused mass hunger in the city, with families surviving on animal feed for months.
New Title: RSF Advances and Key Base Falls
Satellite imagery released by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab showed RSF forces advancing on multiple fronts, including around the Abu Shouk camp and a former UN-African Union peacekeeping base. The base had been used by the Joint Forces, an alliance of armed groups that has fought alongside the military against RSF fighters since late 2023. This alliance has been crucial to the city’s defenses. The city’s largest ethnic group, the Zaghawa, views the RSF as an existential threat.
