Sudan: RSF kills eight civilians in attack on El-Fasher shelter
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked a bunker in the besieged western city of El-Fasher, killing eight civilians, according to The New Arab plus agencies on July 10th.
Virtually all of the western region of Darfur, apart from the city of El-Fasher, is under RSF control. The paramilitary group has besieged the city since May 2024 and began to close in on the sole military garrison stationed there at the beginning of July 2025. All media access and communications have been severed since the conflict between the RSF and military erupted in April 2023.
A doctor stationed in El-Fasher Teaching Hospital, one of the city’s last functioning health facilities, told AFP that “the RSF bombed a shelter where citizens had taken refuge using a drone, late on Tuesday night.”
The doctor spoke on the condition of anonymity for their safety, as the RSF has frequently targeted health workers.
The incident comes as the RSF intensified violence in El-Fasher after losing control of the capital, Khartoum, to the military in March 2025. Since then, attacks on displacement camps surrounding El-Fasher, which are already experiencing famine, have been stepped up by the paramilitary group in an attempt to consolidate its grip on Darfur.
The United Nations has repeatedly highlighted the dire situation that the city’s trapped civilians are facing, who are forced to shelter from shelling in makeshift bunkers.
An eyewitness told AFP that the bunker, which was bombed on July 8th, was “sheltering dozens of people.”
The city’s resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups that are coordinating aid across Sudan, reported artillery strikes all over El-Fasher on July 9th.
An estimated one million people remain in the city, who have extremely limited access to food, water, and healthcare. Critical infrastructure has been destroyed by the violence, lack of maintenance, and fuel shortages.
According to the UN, almost 40 percent of children under the age of five in El-Fasher are suffering from acute malnutrition, with a further 11 percent being categorised as severe cases.
Mass starvation is prevalent across the city, yet aid sources explained that an official famine declaration is not possible due to the lack of access to data.
Since the beginning of the war, the UN estimates that 780,000 people have been displaced from El-Fasher and the displacement camps nearby, including half a million in April and May 2025 following a sequence of severe RSF attacks.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 13 million. Sudan has been described as home to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by the UN.
The New Arab, Maghrebi.org
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