Attacks on health care facilities are on the rise in besieged al-Fisher, where army-linked militias are pushing back RSF fighters.
Dozens of patients have been killed in a drone attack on one of the last functioning hospitals in Sudan’s Darfur region, al-Fisher.
While it was not immediately clear who targeted the Saudi hospital on Friday, medical sources told the AFP news agency that the same building had been hit “a few weeks ago” by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) drones. was targeted.
The report added that Friday’s attack killed at least 30 patients in the emergency department. Regional governor Meni Minawi posted graphic images of bloodied corpses on his X account on Saturday, saying more than 70 patients, including women and children, were “killed” in the attack.
The Sudanese army is at odds with the paramilitary RSF, which since April 2023 has captured almost all of Darfur’s vast western region.
The RSF has besieged the North Darfur state capital of al-Fisher since May, but armed groups linked to the army have repeatedly pushed its fighters back, preventing them from claiming the city.
Attacks on health care facilities have been widespread in al-Fisher, where the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said this month that the Saudi hospital was “the only public hospital that still has surgical capacity”.
Across the country, up to 80 percent of health care facilities have been put out of service, according to official data.
The war, which began after disputes over the merger of the two forces, has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and left half the population starving.
In the area around al-Fisher, famine has already taken hold in three displacement camps – Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Salam – and is expected to spread to five more areas, including the city, by May, according to a UN-backed assessment. It is expected. .
The attack on al-Fisher’s hospital came as the Sudanese army claimed to have broken the RSF’s siege of its headquarters in Khartoum, since the start of the war.
In a statement, the army said that the soldiers [Khartoum North] And Omdurman “were integrated with our forces stationed in the General Command of the Armed Forces”.
Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, consists of three main cities – Khartoum, Omdurman, and Bahri – separated by the Nile River and collectively known as the Triangle Capital.
The army added that it had “dislodged” the RSF from the strategically important Al-Jili oil refinery north of the country’s largest capital.
RSF said in a statement that it rejected the Sudanese army’s claims as “propaganda” designed to boost morale, and accused it of fake videos. Spreading lies through
