Sudan: RSF drone strikes kill seven

At least five people have died due to drone strikes in the northern Sudanese city of Al-Dabbah on October 14th, the Moroccan government-friendly North Africa Post via AA and Reuters reported on October 15th.

A further two people, a doctor and his son, were killed on the same day in a separate attack in East Nile State, east of Khartoum; these deaths were confirmed by the army-aligned Sudan Shields Forces.

According to the Sudan Doctors Network, 233 medical personnel have been killed since the conflict began.

The head of Al-Dabbah’s security committee, Mohamed Saber Kashkash, accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of persistently targeting military infrastructure.

At least 110 people were killed in drone strikes in El-Fasher, North Darfur’s state capital, between October 10th and 11th; the UN condemned the attacks as “repeated and deliberate” in a statement on October 12th. The strikes were allegedly carried out by the RSF and appeared to target a shelter for internally displaced persons in the Daraja Oula neighbourhood.

It was reported on October 9th that 13 people were killed in an RSF artillery attack on an Al-Fasher mosque that was sheltering displaced families.

Between October 7th and 8th, 20 people were killed when the RSF launched strikes targeting Al-Fasher hospital, one of the last operating hospitals in the war-torn region.

Hospitals have also been targets of RSF attacks, including a drone strike on October 7th, which killed eight people in a maternity ward in El-Fasher. Seven people were wounded in the assault, while the strike also “damaged buildings and equipment”.

Similarly, an RSF drone strike on September 19th killed at least 75 people who were sheltering in a mosque inside the Abu-Shouk displacement camp, which is situated near El-Fasher.

El-Fasher has been under an RSF-imposed siege since May 2024; it is the final remaining urban centre in Darfur’s western region that is still under the Sudanese military’s control.

On September 29th, Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) launched an emergency alert based on satellite imagery, which showed that the RSF had amassed a fleet of 43 attack drones in the Darfur region. The presence of drones suggested a “sign of imminent attack,” and the HRL warned the buildup presented a “clear and present danger to civilians, critical infrastructure, and humanitarian aid access.”

The RSF are a paramilitary organisation that has been embroiled in a civil war with the Sudanese government since April 2023. The conflict has led to what the UN described as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

The rebel group was formed from the Janjaweed, whose name translates to “Devils on Horseback.” The Janjaweed were a militia that had been accused of perpetrating genocide in Darfur between August 2003 and March 2004, which targeted ethnic Africans who staged an uprising against the oppressive Arab Sudanese elite.

North Africa Post via AA and Reuters, Maghrebi.org