Sudan: dozens killed in drone attack on El Fasher hospital, RSF rebels blamed

The WTO chief has called for an end to attacks on health care workers and facilities in war-torn Sudan, as about 70 people, including patients, were reportedly killed and dozens injured in a drone attack on a hospital in El-Fasher, in Sudan’s western Darfur region, blamed on rebel forces.

The United Nations said Sunday (26 January) the attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city that was carried out by the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had killed 70 people including patients receiving critical care. As Sudan’s civil war has escalated in recent days, this was the latest in a series of attacks on “the only functional hospital in El Fasher, the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, (which) provides services which include gyn-obstetrics, internal medicine, surgery and pediatrics, along with a nutrition stabilization center,” according to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Local officials have blamed the bloody attack on the paramilitary RSF that had recently experienced apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces led by army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan. “The attack … on the only functional hospital in El-Fasher is a shocking violation of international humanitarian law,” said the UN’s most senior official in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, who denounced “the alarming disregard for human life”. The RSF siege of El Fasher, a city of more than 1 million people, had killed 782 civilians and wounded more than 1,140 others, according to the UN.