RSF shelling kills 14 people in Sudan displacement camp

Shelling by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group (RSF) killed at least 14 people on Sunday in a famine-hit displacement camp in the war-torn country's western Darfur region, volunteer rescuers said.

The artillery attack targeted the Abu Shouk camp, according to the local Emergency Response Room, one of hundreds across the country delivering frontline aid since the war between the army and RSF began in April 2023.

It said "the market and other parts inside the camp including mosques and homes close to public facilities" were hit, adding that safety concerns prevented first responders from tallying all casualties.

Abu Shouk shelters tens of thousands of people displaced by violence both from previous conflicts in Darfur and the current war.

Drone strikes

Since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March, the RSF has intensified its attacks on El-Fasher – the last state capital in Darfur still under army control – and its nearby displacement camps of Zamzam and Abu Shouk.

Last month, the RSF seized Zamzam after a bloody offensive that forced 400,000 people to flee the camp, once home to up to a million displaced people.

The conflict, now in its third year, has carved up the northeast African country, with the army holding the centre, east and north while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.

Some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) east, a days-long electricity blackout in Khartoum caused by drone strikes on power stations has disrupted healthcare at the city's major hospitals, medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Sunday.

Key infrastructure targeted

On Wednesday, drone strikes blamed on the RSF targeted three power stations in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, causing a major blackout across the state, according to the Khartoum governor's media office.

The RSF has in recent weeks launched a campaign of drone strikes on key infrastructure in the army-controlled northeast, including its seat of government in Port Sudan.

"The blackout has affected almost all of Omdurman, including the MSF-supported Ministry of Health hospitals, Al Nao and Al Buluk," MSF said in a statement.

Both hospitals now "lack electricity, oxygen and water", the charity said, adding that "healthcare at every level is being disrupted."

Water network 'not working'

MSF also said that the local water network "is not working", risking the spread of cholera in the city as residents "will turn to different water sources."

Sudan's already fragile healthcare system has been pushed to "breaking point" by the war, according to the World Health Organization.

Up to 90% of the country's hospitals have at some point been forced to close because of the fighting, according to the doctors' union, with health facilities stormed, bombed and looted.