Dozens of civilians killed in two days of intense fighting in Sudan

More people killed in North Darfur and Greater Khartoum attacks as fighting between the army and the RSF turns bloodier.

Dozens of people have been killed over two days in Sudan as fighting between the army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensifies, according to officials, activists and rights groups.

The 20-month conflict, which has killed tens of thousands, has become increasingly bloody, with the army stepping up air attacks in areas under the RSF control and the paramilitary forces staging raids and carrying out intense artillery strikes.

On Monday, an air attack on a busy market in the town of Kabkabiya, a town about 180km (110 miles) west of North Darfur’s capital el-Fasher, currently surrounded by the RSF, killed more than 100 people and wounded hundreds, including women and children, according to rights group Emergency Lawyers.

The army denied responsibility for the attack, insisting that it had the right to target any location used by the RSF for military purposes, according to the Reuters news agency. There was no immediate comment from the RSF.

On Tuesday, the RSF aimed heavy artillery fire at an army-controlled sector of Omdurman, a city across the Nile from Khartoum that forms part of Sudan’s wider capital, according to residents. State-aligned Khartoum Governor Ahmed Othman Hamza reported that at least 65 people had been killed and hundreds wounded.

According to Hamza, who called the attack a “massacre”, attributing it to “the terrorist militia”, a shell hit a passenger bus and “killed everyone on board and turned 22 people into body parts”.

A medical source in Omdurman’s Al-Nao hospital, one of the last facilities receiving patients in the area, told the AFP news agency that the hospital received 15 of those killed in the attack on the bus, with another seven dying later in the hospital.

The hospital had also “received 45 injured from different areas” of Omdurman, the source added, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.

On Tuesday, the RSF shelled famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, killing five people, according to civil society group the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.

Emergency Lawyers also reported six people were killed in North Kordofan state when a drone that had crashed on November 26 exploded.

Power struggle

Sudan’s war broke out in April 2023 amid a power struggle between the army and the RSF before a planned transition to civilian rule.

Both sides have committed abuses that may amount to war crimes, including attacking civilians, a United Nations fact-finding mission said in September.

The violence has killed tens of thousands, pushed 11 million people from their homes and unleashed the world’s biggest hunger crisis, according to the UN.

On Tuesday, the UN warned almost 10,000 people a day are fleeing across the border to South Sudan, with daily arrivals having tripled in recent weeks.

The healthcare system, already fragile before the war, has been severely crippled with up to 80 percent of health facilities in affected areas either closed or barely operational, the UN says.