Dozens killed as Sudan rivals strike civilian areas in North Darfur

EL-FASHER/KUMA – At least 80 civilians were killed over the weekend in North Darfur state in separate drone and artillery strikes by Sudan’s warring factions, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), according to local groups, marking a continued and devastating cycle of warfare on civilian-populated areas.

The attacks, which witnesses and local committees said deliberately targeted displacement camps and social gatherings, underscore the conflict’s increasingly ethnic dimension and the pervasive use of collective punishment by both sides.

On Friday night, RSF-operated drones and artillery struck Dar Al-Arqam, a religious displacement center on the campus of Omdurman Islamic University in El Fasher. The assault killed at least 60 civilians, including 17 children (three of them infants) and 22 women, and wounded 57 others, according to the El Fasher Resistance Committee.

The committee reported on Saturday that the coordinated strikes began Friday and continued into Sunday morning, specifically targeting shelters housing displaced families—primarily women, children, and the elderly.

“An RSF drone bombed the Dar Al-Arqam shelter, killing dozens of unarmed civilians yesterday and this morning at the center and at Omdurman Islamic University. Bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble, while others were burned alive inside the shelter’s caravans. Children, women, and the elderly were killed in cold blood, many of them completely incinerated by the strategic drone in a deliberate act of revenge,” the committee said.

“There are also hundreds of dead and wounded inside residential neighborhoods due to continued bombardment and drone attacks. The situation has surpassed the limits of catastrophe and genocide inside the city, while the world remains silent. Everyone here is dying—by bombardment, hunger, or disease. Every day, the city loses more than thirty innocent lives, counted as martyrs who await God’s justice. God is with us, no matter what they do; the truth will always prevail,” the statement seen by Sudans Post added.

Many victims suffered severe burns and shrapnel wounds, with some reportedly “burned alive inside metal caravans” used as makeshift homes, as fires raged through the compound.

The El Fasher Resistance Committee accused the RSF of committing “acts of genocide” against civilians and executing a “deliberate act of revenge.”

However, the RSF in a statement on Sunday denied responsibility for the fatal shelling. The group’s spokesman Al-Fatih Qurshi stated that the circulating reports accusing their forces of the attack were “incorrect claims.”

“These claims are completely and utterly untrue, and come in the context of a systematic disinformation campaign aimed at covering up the field defeats suffered by the army and its mercenary elements.”

The Sudan Doctors’ Network called the October 11 assault a “full-fledged act of genocide” and accused the militia of employing a scorched-earth strategy to depopulate civilian districts.

The Dar Al-Arqam strike comes less than a month after RSF drones hit Al-Safiya Mosque during dawn prayers on September 19, killing more than 75 worshippers. These assaults are part of the RSF’s ongoing push to capture the SAF’s last functioning garrison in Darfur, the 6th Infantry Division headquarters, amidst its two-year siege of El Fasher.

Local medics confirmed that most of the dead were displaced families who had sought refuge in the compound following earlier bombardments in the city. El Fasher is a key strategic city, mostly controlled by the SAF and aligned with non-Arab groups like the Zaghawa, Fur, Berti, and Tunjur, and it shelters tens of thousands of displaced civilians.

The following day, on Saturday morning, a drone operated by the Sudanese military bombed the town of Al-Kuma, northeast of El-Fasher, targeting a social gathering at the home of local religious leader Sheikh Ahmed Rabah.

The attack killed at least 20 civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, and wounded many others, local leaders reported. A community leader described the incident as adding to the growing record of crimes by the Sudanese Armed Forces, accusing the Port Sudan government (referencing the SAF-aligned administration) of targeting non-military residential areas.

The Sudan Founding Alliance (SFA), an RSF-aligned coalition, condemned the Al-Kuma airstrike as a “grotesque violation of international law,” part of a “continuing pattern of genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaigns” waged by the Sudanese military.

Al-Kuma is predominantly inhabited by the Ziyadiya, a subsection of Darfur’s Arab nomadic tribes that are a key support base for the RSF. Under RSF control since mid-2023, the town is frequently targeted by SAF airstrikes, which local leaders say are acts of collective punishment against Arab populations perceived as siding with the RSF.