Port Sudan (Sudan) (AFP) – Fourteen people were killed in shelling by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a market in a displacement camp in the Darfur region, according to relief sources on Sunday, as these forces intensified their attacks in western and eastern Sudan.
The Emergency Room of Abu Shouk camp said in a statement that the shelling hit “the Nevesha market… and other parts inside the camp such as mosques and homes near public facilities” in the camp, which is suffering from famine.
It confirmed that “the scale of losses is large, but due to the poor security situation,” it was difficult to account for “all the victims and the injured.”
Abu Shouk camp is located in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, which is the last major city still under army control, while the RSF controls most of the vast region of Darfur in western Sudan.
The RSF has intensified its attacks on army positions in El Fasher and its outskirts after being defeated by the army in the capital Khartoum two months ago.
Near El Fasher, the RSF announced last month that it had taken control of Zamzam camp after violent attacks that killed hundreds and displaced at least 400,000 of its residents, who had fled there during the war or previous conflicts in Darfur.
The army and RSF are conducting reciprocal attacks across the country, seeking to control territory or cut off the opponent’s supply lines.
The human rights group Emergency Lawyers accused the army and allied forces on Sunday of carrying out “a treacherous attack on the village of Al-Hamadi in South Kordofan on the morning of Thursday, May 15, 2025, which resulted in the killing of 18 civilians – including 6 women and 4 children – and injuring more than 13 others, according to preliminary statistics.”
According to the group, “the attack was accompanied by widespread looting of citizens’ homes and the village market, arbitrary arrests of activists, and dozens of civilians were forced to flee on foot to neighboring villages and towns under extremely harsh humanitarian conditions.”
Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders warned on Sunday that health services in major hospitals in Sudan’s capital have been affected after shelling on power stations caused a total blackout in Khartoum.
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Power outage in Khartoum
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that the Omdurman suburb “is facing its fourth major power outage this year following reports of drone attacks by the Rapid Support Forces on three power stations in Khartoum state.”
Khartoum Governor Ahmed Osman Hamza said in a statement the day after the power stations were targeted last week that “the total power outage in the state has caused major paralysis of essential electricity-dependent services such as water, hospitals, and other vital facilities, worsening the suffering of citizens.”
The Doctors Without Borders statement noted that Al-Nau and Al-Balk hospitals in Omdurman are suffering “from shortages of electricity, oxygen, and water. Healthcare at all levels is disrupted,” pointing out that Al-Nau is “the main hospital in the area, receiving patients from Omdurman, Bahri, and Khartoum. If its services stop, a vital lifeline will be cut off.”
The statement predicted an increase in cholera cases due to the lack of drinking water, as “people will resort to different water sources” with water stations ceasing to operate.
The organization condemned “all attacks on civilian infrastructure. These raids exacerbate an already dire humanitarian crisis,” calling for an immediate halt to attacks on infrastructure.
In recent days, RSF drones have targeted vital sites in the country’s northeast, where hundreds of thousands suffer from severe food insecurity.
In the past two weeks, the RSF has launched drone attacks on civilian infrastructure in Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands have been displaced over the past two years and where the army-aligned government has its temporary headquarters, including the city’s Red Sea port, main fuel depot, and power station.
Sudan has been engulfed since mid-April 2023 in a devastating war between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, which has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million people, and caused what the United Nations calls the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history.
