CAIRO (Reuters) -The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked the main still-functioning hospital in al-Fashir, in Sudan’s North Darfur state on Friday, killing nine people and injuring 20, according to a local health official and activists.
A drone fired four missiles at the hospital overnight, destroying wards, waiting areas and other facilities, said state health minister Ibrahim Khatir and the al-Fashir resistance committee, a pro-democracy group that monitors violence in the area.
Images they shared showed debris scattered over hospital beds and damaged ceilings and walls. The RSF says it does not target civilians and could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sudan’s army and the RSF have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months, triggering a profound humanitarian crisis in which more than 12 million people have been driven from their homes and U.N. agencies have struggled to deliver relief.
Al-Fashir is one of the most active frontlines between the RSF and the Sudanese army and its allies, which are fighting to maintain a last foothold in the Darfur region. Observers fear that an RSF victory there could bring ethnic retribution as happened in West Darfur last year.
Nearby Zamzam camp, where experts say a famine is occurring among a population of more than half a million people, has also come under RSF artillery fire over the last two weeks, forcing thousands to leave the camp.
The army has responded with airstrikes that have targeted al-Fashir and surrounding towns. This week it staged one of the deadliest attacks in the war, killing more than 100 in the town of Kabkabiya.
At the U.N. Security Council earlier this week, Sudan accused the United Arab Emirates of carrying out drone attacks for the RSF from Amdjarass in Chad, targeting al-Fashir and other cities in the north of Sudan as well as supplying weaponry and training.
Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab said in a report on Friday that they had identified four heavy artillery pieces in the vicinity of al-Fashir and Zamzam consistent with AH4 155 mm howitzers, weapons it says have only been purchased by the UAE from China. They said the weapons had been observed for the first time in Sudan in November.
The UAE denies supporting the RSF and says it only carries out flights carrying humanitarian aid for Sudanese refugees in Chad.
Hospitals in al-Fashir have frequently come under fire in the war, leaving Saudi Hospital the last major functioning facility in the area.
The same has happened across the country’s warzones. In Khartoum state, nearly half of the hospitals have been damaged, severely hampering access to medical care, according to a report this week by the Sudanese American Physicians Association and the Yale researchers.
(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir; additional reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz and Ryan McNeillEditing by Ros Russell and Rosalba O’Brien)
