Health official: RSF targets al-Fashir’s largest hospital in Sudan

Nine people were killed and twenty injured in Friday’s attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on the main hospital that is still operational in al-Fashir, in the state of North Darfur in Sudan, according to activists and a local health official.

According to the al-Fashir resistance committee, a pro-democracy organization that keeps tabs on local violence, and state health minister Ibrahim Khatir, a drone fired four missiles at the hospital overnight, destroying wards, waiting spaces, and other facilities.

Images they posted showed damaged walls and ceilings, as well as debris strewn across hospital beds. Although it was not immediately available for comment, the RSF claims that it does not target civilians.

Over 12 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result of the more than 18-month-long fighting between the RSF and Sudan’s army, which has made it difficult for U.N. organizations to provide aid.

One of the busiest frontlines between the RSF and the Sudanese army and its allies, who are battling for a final footing in the Darfur region, is Al-Fashir. A triumph by the RSF there, like in West Darfur last year, might lead to ethnic retaliation, according to observers.

Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate the nearby Zamzam camp over the past two weeks due to RSF artillery shelling, which experts believe is causing hunger among the camp’s population of nearly half a million.

In retaliation, the army launched airstrikes against al-Fashir and the other communities. It carried out one of the bloodiest attacks in the war this week, killing around 100 people in the town of Kabkabiya.

Earlier this week in the U.N. Security Council, Sudan accused the United Arab Emirates of providing weapons and training to the RSF from Amdjarass in Chad, engaging in drone assaults against al-Fashir and other northern Sudanese cities.

The UAE claims that it solely conducts flights that deliver humanitarian aid to Sudanese refugees in Chad and denies any support for the RSF.

Due to the war’s many attacks on al-Fashir’s hospitals, Saudi Hospital is the last significant operational facility in the region.

In all of the nation’s conflict zones, the same has occurred. The Sudanese American Physicians Association and the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab released research this week that found that about half of the hospitals in the state of Khartoum have been damaged, significantly impairing access to healthcare.