Smoke billows during air strikes in central Khartoum as the Sudanese army attacks positions held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) throughout the Sudanese capital on October 12, 2024. Photo by AFP.
Port Sudan, Sudan: Sudanese paramilitary shelling of a market in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, killed 40 people on Saturday, a medical source told AFP.
Requesting anonymity for their safety, the source at Al Nao Hospital said the wounded were "still being brought to the hospital" following the attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Since April 2023, the paramilitary RSF has been at war with the regular army, in a brutal conflict that has killed tens of thousands and uprooted over 12 million.
"The shells fell in the middle of the vegetable market, that's why the victims and the wounded are so many," one survivor told AFP.
A volunteer at Al-Nao Hospital told AFP they were in dire need of "shrouds, blood donors and stretchers to transport the wounded".
The hospital is one of the last medical facilities operating in the area, and has been repeatedly attacked.
After months of apparent stalemate in the capital, the army this month managed to reclaim key bases including its Khartoum headquarters, pushing the RSF out of many of its strongholds and increasingly into the city's outskirts.
Eyewitnesses to the attack on Saturday -- only the latest to target civilians in markets -- told AFP the artillery shelling came from western Omdurman, where the RSF remains in control, and was supported by drones.
One resident further south in Omdurman reported that the RSF was firing on multiple streets at once, saying "rockets and artillery shells are falling".
