(Port Sudan) Pro-democracy activists in Sudan reported Friday that around 40 civilians were killed in “violent artillery fire” by paramilitaries on neighborhoods of Omdurman, near the capital Khartoum, yet another illustration of the impact of the conflict on a population devastated by a humanitarian crisis.
The “Karari resistance committee”, named after one of the neighborhoods of Omdurman, in the northwest suburbs of Khartoum, blames the artillery strikes carried out Thursday on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war against the Sudanese army since April 2023.
“So far, the number of dead is estimated at 40 citizens, and there are more than 50 injured, some seriously,” underlines the committee, one of the numerous networks of activists organizing the mutual aid between residents, and which have flourished in recent years.
“There is not yet a precise count of the number of victims in Omdurman,” adds the committee, which specified that the shooting particularly affected “residential neighborhoods” in the Karari sector.
“Most of the dead arrived at al-Nao University Hospital, the rest in private hospitals or they were buried by their families.”
Reporting fighting with the army on the Halfaya bridge, linking Khartoum-North to Omdurman, the RSF assured Thursday on their
In just over a year, the war between the two rival generals fighting for power in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead, with some estimates even going as high as “150,000” victims, according to the American envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including targeting civilians, indiscriminately bombing residential areas and engaging in looting or blocking vital humanitarian aid.
On Wednesday, RSF paramilitaries were also accused by pro-democracy activists of having carried out a bloody attack against a village in central Sudan.
Washington on Friday condemned a “horrific” massacre “against unarmed civilians,” demanding that paramilitaries “be held accountable,” according to a State Department statement.
Activists from the “Madani Resistance Committee” had posted images on social media showing a row of white shrouds arranged on a field.
“The images reaching us from Wad al-Noura are heartbreaking,” the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country, Clémentine Nkweta-Salami, said on Thursday.
“Human tragedy has become a characteristic of life in Sudan,” she lamented on X (formerly Twitter). “Fighting and the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas must be avoided at all costs. Civilians should never be targets.”
Accused of looting, but also of sexual and ethnic violence, the RSF have repeatedly besieged and attacked entire villages across the country.
In a statement, the paramilitaries said they had attacked three army camps in the Wad al-Noura region and clashed with their rivals “outside” the populated area.
“Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are unacceptable,” responded UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, referring to the deaths of at least 35 children in Wad al-Noura, and reporting 20 other injured.
In a country with a pre-war population of around 48 million, some 18 million people suffer from hunger and 3.6 million children from acute malnutrition, according to UN agencies.