Sudan's Darfur air strike leaves 14 family members dead at camp

At least 14 members of the same family were killed in an air strike on a displacement camp in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, a rescue group said Saturday, blaming paramilitaries.

The Abu Shouk camp "was the target of intense bombardment by the Rapid Support Forces on Friday evening", said the group of volunteer aid workers, which also reported wounded.

"Fourteen Sudanese, members of the same family, were killed" and several people wounded, it said in a statement.

The camp near El-Fasher, the last state capital in Darfur still out of the RSF's control, is plagued by famine, according to the United Nations.

Camp shelled severally

It is home to tens of thousands of people who fled the violence of successive conflicts in Darfur and the conflict that has been tearing Africa's third largest country apart since 2023.

The RSF, which is at war with the regular army, has shelled the camp several times in recent weeks.

Abu Shouk is located near the Zamzam camp, which the RSF seized in April after a devastating offensive that virtually emptied it.

The United Nations says nearly one million people had been sheltering at the site.

Humanitarian crisis

The war, which began as a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has spiralled into what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

It has effectively divided the country in two with the army controlling the north, east and centre while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south.