Khartoum has largely been spared attacks by the RSF since it was recaptured by the Sudanese Armed Forces last year, but the capital has recently seen sporadic strikes. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Sudans’ military chief General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan accused U.S. envoy Massad Boulos of parroting talking points from Abu Dhabi, which has been widely accused of arming the RSF. The UAE denies the accusations. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Port Sudan:

Sudanese paramilitary shelling of a market in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, killed 40 people on Saturday, a medical source told AFP.

Requesting anonymity for their safety, the source at Al-Nao Hospital said the wounded were “still being brought to the hospital” following the attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Since April 2023, the paramilitary RSF has been at war with the regular army, in a brutal conflict that has killed tens of thousands and uprooted over 12 million.

“The shells fell in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why the victims and the wounded are so many,” one survivor told AFP.

A volunteer at Al-Nao Hospital told AFP they were in dire need of “shrouds, blood donors and stretchers to transport the wounded”.

The hospital is one of the last medical facilities operating in the area, and has been repeatedly attacked.

After months of apparent stalemate in the capital, the army this month managed to reclaim key bases including its Khartoum headquarters, pushing the RSF out of many of its strongholds and increasingly into the city’s outskirts.

Eyewitnesses to the attack on Saturday — only the latest to target civilians in markets — told AFP the artillery shelling came from western Omdurman, where the RSF remains in control, and was supported by drones.

One resident further south in Omdurman reported that the RSF was firing on multiple streets at once, saying “rockets and artillery shells are falling”.

– Counter-offensive –

Saturday’s attack comes a day after RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo vowed to retake the capital from the army.

“We expelled them (from Khartoum) before, and we will expel them again,” he told troops in a rare video address.

Soon after the first shelling began nearly 22 months ago, Sudan’s capital was turned into a shell of its former self.

Of the tens of thousands dead across the country, 26,000 people were killed in the capital alone between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Entire neighbourhoods have been emptied out and taken over by fighters as at least 3.6 million people fled the capital, according to United Nations figures.

Those unable or unwilling to leave have reported shelling regularly hitting homes and residential areas, while sieges on parts of the capital have threatened millions with starvation.

At least 106,000 people are estimated to be suffering from famine in Khartoum, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, with a further 3.2 million experiencing crisis levels of hunger.

Across the northeast African country, famine has been declared in five areas — mainly in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur — and is expected to take hold of five more by May.

Before leaving office, the administration of former US president Joe Biden sanctioned Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war.

That designation came about one week after Washington sanctioned the RSF’s Daglo for his role in “gross violations of human rights” in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the RSF dominates.

The United States said Daglo’s forces had “committed genocide”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Port Sudan:

A drone attack on one of the last functioning hospitals in El-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region killed 30 people and injured dozens, a medical source said Saturday.

The bombing of the Saudi Hospital on Friday evening “led to the destruction” of the hospital’s building where emergency cases were treated, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation.

It was not immediately clear which of Sudan’s warring sides had launched the attack.

Since April 2023, the Sudanese army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have seized nearly the entire vast western region of Darfur.

They have besieged El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, since May, but have not managed to claim the city, where army-aligned militias have repeatedly pushed them back.

According to the medical source, the same building had been hit by an RSF drone “a few weeks ago”.

Attacks on health care have been rampant in El-Fasher, where medical charity Doctors Without Borders said this month the Saudi Hospital was “the only public hospital with surgical capacity still standing”.

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

The war has so far killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million and brought millions to the brink of mass starvation.

In the area around El-Fasher, famine has already taken hold in three displacement camps — Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam — and is expected to expand to five more areas including the city itself by May, according to a UN-backed assessment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to face acute malnutrition this year in war-torn Sudan, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Of this number, around 7,72,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition,” Eva Hinds, UNICEF Sudan’s Head of Advocacy and Communication, said late on Thursday (January 9, 2025).

Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment.

Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands and, according to the United Nations, uprooting 12 million in the world’s largest displacement crisis.

Confirming that 3.2 million children are currently expected to face acute malnutrition, Ms. Hinds said “the number of severely malnourished children increased from an estimated 7,30,000 in 2024 to over 7,70,000 in 2025.”

The IPC expects famine to expand to five more parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region by May — a vast area that has seen some of the conflict’s worst violence. A further 17 areas in western and central Sudan are also at risk of famine, it said.

“Without immediate, unhindered humanitarian access facilitating a significant scale-up of a multisectoral response, malnutrition is likely to increase in these areas,” Ms. Hinds warned.

Sudan’s Army-aligned government strongly rejected the IPC findings, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.

In October 2024, experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council accused both sides of using “starvation tactics”.

On Tuesday (January 7, 2025), the United States determined that the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.

Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to IPC, which said: “Only a ceasefire can reduce the risk of famine spreading further”.

Clashes around Khartoum’s military headquarters where Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had been holed up until last month.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan held talks on September 16 with Uganda’s veteran President Yoweri Museveni on his latest diplomatic foray abroad.

The Sudanese general was pictured meeting with Museveni at State House in the Ugandan town of Entebbe on what was described as a one-day working visit.

“They deliberated on bilateral and regional issues,” said a brief statement from the Ugandan presidency.

Sudan has been at war since April when fighting erupted between the regular army led by Mr. Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Clashes around Khartoum’s military headquarters — where Mr. Burhan had been holed up until last month — had seen a brief two-week respite before flaring again, with the RSF showering it with artillery fire, residents said Saturday.

Eyewitnesses on the ground told AFP they heard clashes in central Khartoum, with one resident saying the RSF “is firing heavy artillery” at army headquarters.

From his new base in the Red Sea coastal city of Port Sudan, Mr. Burhan has since late August made six trips abroad in what analysts say is a diplomatic push to burnish his credentials in the event of negotiations to end the conflict.

His first visit was to Egypt, followed by South Sudan, Qatar, Eritrea, Turkey and now Uganda.

At least 7,500 people have been killed since the conflict broke out on April 15, according to a conservative estimate from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The war has uprooted more than five million people, including one million who fled across borders, according to United Nations figures.

Neither side has been able to gain the upper hand in the conflict, with the army controlling the skies and Daglo’s fighters embedding themselves in residential areas.

Witnesses have noted an increase in the intensity of air strikes, and consequently the civilian death toll, as the army seeks to regain control of parts of the capital.

Mr. Burhan has been Sudan’s de facto leader since the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019, when he was appointed head of the Sovereign Council of military and civilian figures tasked with steering the transition to a fully-fledged democracy.