Paramilitary drone attack on a mosque in Sudan kills at least 70 people, army says

Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces unit secure the area where Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo attends a military-backed tribe's rally, in the East Nile province, Sudan, June 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

CAIRO — A drone attack blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces struck a mosque during prayers Friday, killing at least 70 worshippers in the North Darfur region, aid workers and the Sudanese army said.

The strike in the besieged city of El Fasher completely destroyed the mosque, and the death toll would likely go higher because bodies still were buried in the rubble, said a worker with the local aid group Emergency Response Rooms. The worker spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

Sudan’s army, which has been fighting against the RSF in escalating violence since April 2023, said in a statement that it was mourning the deaths of at least 70 victims in the attack.

“Targeting civilians unjustly is the motto of this rebel militia, and it continues to do so in full view of the entire world,” the statement read.

Further details of the attack were difficult to obtain because it happened in an area where many international organizations have pulled out due to security risks in the crossfire of battles between the RSF and the army.

The fight between the two sides has erupted into a civil war that has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, displaced as many as 12 million others and pushed many to the brink of famine.

The Resistance Committees in El Fasher, a group of local activists who track abuses, posted a video Friday reportedly showing parts of the mosque reduced to rubble with several scattered bodies. The Associated Press could not independently verify the footage.

The Darfur Victims Support Organization, which monitors abuses against civilians, said the attack happened at a mosque on the Daraga al-Oula street at around 5 a.m. local time, citing witnesses.

The latest in a series of attacks in El Fasher

The drone strike was the latest in a series of attacks over the past week during heavy clashes between the two sides in El Fasher.

Satellite imagery posted Friday by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University showed signs of drone activity and the impact of explosions in the El Fasher area earlier in the week.

The images showed damage to several structures in the famine-stricken Abu Shouk refugee camp, Located outside El Fasher, the camp houses 450,000 displaced people and has been repeatedly attacked throughout the war.

“El Fasher is falling to RSF forces,” who now control the Abu Shouk camp and have overrun the local operational headquarters of the army, the Yale-based group said.

The Resistance Committee in El Fasher said in a statement Thursday that the RSF had targeted several unarmed civilians, including women and older adults, in displacement shelters in the city.

On Tuesday, the Sudan Doctors Network had said that the RSF killed 18 people and kidnapped 14 others, including three girls, in El Fasher in what it said was a surge in kidnappings.

Thousands in the region have died, UN says

A Friday report by U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) recorded the deaths of at least 3,384 civilians in Sudan, mostly in Darfur, between January and June, nearly 80% of the number of civilian casualties recorded in 2024. The real death toll is likely significantly higher.

By early April, fighting in El Fasher over the control of the city and surrounding areas in North Darfur had intensified. More than 400 civilians have been killed in RSF attacks in the area since Apr. 10. The majority were killed in a major offensive that seized the nearby Zamzam displacement camp. The camp was turned into an RSF military base used to launch assaults on El Fasher, according to the report.

RSF offensives have left many wounded and involved sexual violence, summary executions of residents and humanitarians, and attacks on civilians hiding in improvised bomb shelters or attempting to flee, according to OHCHR.

Residents under El Fasher siege lack healthcare

Healthcare remains largely inaccessible under siege of El Fasher, said Dr. Ezzeldin Asow of El Fasher South Hospital in a voice recording posted by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

He said patients are being brought on foot or by donkey carts, while medical workers continue saving lives despite risking their own. El Fasher South Hospital is the only working hospital offering surgery in the city.

U.N. Human Rights Office’s representative for Sudan, Li Fung, at a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Friday warned that the situation in El Fasher “continues to rapidly deteriorate” as the ongoing siege causes severe shortages in food, water and medicine.

“The reality on the ground in El Fasher is horrific,” Fung said. “We continue to receive reports of civilians being killed, abducted or subjected to sexual violence while attempting to leave El Fasher.”

“There are no safe exit routes out of the city, and civilians are trapped in a situation of impossible choice -- either stay in El Fasher and risk bombardment, starvation and atrocities if the RSF overrun the city, or flee and face the risk of summary execution, sexual violence and abduction.”

Fatma Khaled, The Associated Press