DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — About 70 people were killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher sudanthe World Health Organization chief said Sunday, part of a series of attacks that come as civil wars in African countries have recently escalated.
The attack on Saudi Arabia’s teaching and maternity hospital was blamed by local officials on the rebels’ swift support forces, but the group was apparently joined by Sudanese and allied forces under the command of Army Chief Abdel Fattah Burhan. They came because they had experienced battlefield losses. That includes the upcoming Burhan combustion oil refinery He said his troops were seized from the RSF north of Khartoum on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack as a “violation of international law.”
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics US rating that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide, and that sanctions targeting Burhan have not stopped the fighting;
Reported attack follows RSF alert
Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on social platform X the death toll in El Fasher’s hospital attack.
Officials in the capital of North Darfur state and others had cited similar figures on Saturday, but Tedros is the first international source to provide casualty figures. Reporting on Sudan is extremely difficult given the communication challenges, the indiscriminate violence faced by civilians, and the exaggerations by both the RSF and the Sudanese military.
“A horrific attack on a Saudi hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, resulted in 19 injuries and 70 deaths among patients and colleagues,” Tedros wrote. “At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care.”
Another medical facility in Al Malha was also attacked on Saturday, he added.
“We continue to call for an end to all attacks on Sudan’s health care and allow full access for the rapid recovery of damaged facilities,” Tedros said. “Above all, the people of Sudan need peace. The best medicine is peace.”
Tedros did not specify who initiated the attack, but local officials blamed the RSF for the attack. Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also accused the RSF of launching a drone attack targeting the hospital’s emergency ward, describing the attack as a “genocide.”
United Nations Clementine Nkweta Salami, who coordinates the world body’s humanitarian efforts in Sudan, said on Thursday that the RSF had “given the ultimate 48 hours to force the Sudanese army to ally, force them to vacate the city and prevent future warned of an attack.”
“Since May 2024, El Fasher has been under RSF siege,” she said. “Civilians in El Fasher have already endured months of suffering, violence and gross human rights violations under prolonged siege. Their lives hang in the balance due to an increasingly precarious situation. It’s on.”
In a statement Sunday night, RSF claimed that Sudanese forces and their allies attacked the hospital in El Fasher, but provided no evidence to support the claim.
El Fasher is more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of Khartoum. The city is currently estimated to be home to over 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the war.
The United Nations said in December that the RSF siege had killed 782 civilians and injured more than 1,140 others, warning that the figure was likely higher.
The Saudi Hospital, just north of the airport in El Fasher, is near the front lines of the war and is repeatedly seen in shelling. Still, the doctor continues to operate while the hospital is under attack, sometimes by the light of a cell phone.
However, RSF recently appeared to have lost control of the Khartoum refinery, which is Sudan’s largest and important to both its economy and South Sudan. Burhan’s forces also say they broke another RSF siege of the Signals Corps headquarters in northern Khartoum. The rebels claimed they were “tightening the noose” around the base.
Sudan’s war sees atrocities by fighters
Sudan has been unstable since a popular uprising forced the removal of a longtime dictator omar al bashir 2019. Short-lived transition to democracy derailed when RSF’s Burhan and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo joined forces to lead military coup October 2021.
Al-Bashir, along with RSF’s predecessor Janjaweed, faces charges at the International Criminal Court for carrying out a genocidal campaign in the western region of Darfur in the early 2000s. Rights groups and the United Nations say the RSF and Arab militias are once again attacking African groups in this war.
RSF and Sudanese forces began fighting each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left families grazing in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a much higher death toll in the civil war.
On Sunday, Burhan traveled to the military’s General Command headquarters in Khartoum. This was a building he had not been to since fighting broke out in 2023. Headquarters is nearby. Khartoum International Airportsaw fierce fighting during the war.
“The military is in top condition and we will move forward with the determination of our people to eliminate the insurgency across Sudan,” Burhan said.
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Samy Magdy contributed to this report from Cairo.
