Deadly drone attack on hospital in Sudan's Darfur | Conflict news

Attacks on health facilities have spread to besieged al-Fasher, where militias joined by the army are pushing back RSF fighters.

Dozens of patients were killed in a drone attack on one of the last functioning hospitals in el-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region.

While it was unclear who targeted the Saudi hospital on Friday, medical sources quoted by the AFP news agency said the same building had been hit by a Rapid Support Force (RSF) drone “several weeks ago”.

Friday's attack killed at least 30 patients in the emergency room, the report added. Regional governor Minnie Minawi posted graphic images of bloodied bodies on her X account on Saturday, saying the attack had “destroyed” more than 70 patients, including women and children.

The Sudanese army has been at war with the paramilitary RSF, which has seized almost all of the vast western Darfur region since April 2023.

The RSF has been besieging al-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, since May, but armed groups joined by the army have repeatedly pushed back its fighters, preventing them from taking the city.

Attacks on health facilities are widespread in al-Fasher, where the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said this month that the Saudi hospital was “the only public hospital with surgical capacity still existing”.

Across the country, up to 80 percent of health facilities have been forced to close, according to official figures.

The war, which broke out after disputes over the integration of the two powers, killed tens of thousands of people, drove millions from their homes and plunged half the population into starvation.

In the area around al-Fasher, famine has already engulfed three camps for displaced people – Zamzam, Abu Shuq and al-Salam – and is expected to spread to five more areas, including the city itself, by May, according to a UN-backed assessment.

The attack on the al-Fasher hospital came as the Sudanese army claimed to have broken through the RSF's siege of its headquarters in Khartoum, in place since the outbreak of war.

In a statement, the army said troops in Bahri (Khartoum North) and Omdurman had “merged with our forces stationed at the Armed Forces General Command”.

The capital of Sudan, Khartoum, consists of three main cities – Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri – separated by the Nile River and together referred to as the Triangle Capital.

The army added that it had “discarded” the RSF from the strategically important al-Jili oil refinery north of the capital, the largest in the country.

RSF said in a statement that it rejected the Sudanese army's claims as “propaganda” designed to boost morale and accused it of spreading lies through fake videos.