A picture taken on January 19, 2025 shows a general view of damaged shops and houses in Sudan's Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani following its takeover by the army from paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (Photo by AFP)
Port Sudan: Sixteen Sudanese civilians were killed and 18 others injured when the paramilitary RSF forces shelled a famine-stricken displacement camp in El-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur, rescuers said.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023, shelled a market in Abu Shouk displacement camp, reported the area's emergency response room, part of a network of volunteer rescuers across the war-torn country, late Monday.
In December, a UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) review found that famine had gripped three displacement camps in North Darfur, including Abu Shouk, as well as affected residents and displaced communities in the Nuba Mountains of southern Kordofan.
Famine had earlier been declared in Zamzam, another displacement camp in North Darfur's El-Fasher.
El-Fasher, home to some two million people who have been under RSF siege since May, has seen some of the worst fighting of the war as the army battles to keep its last foothold in the vast Darfur region of western Sudan.
Nearly all of Darfur is now controlled by the RSF, which has also taken over swathes of the southern Kordofan region.
The regular army still holds the north and east. Greater Khartoum is carved up between warring factions.
The war in Sudan has claimed the lives of tens of thousands and uprooted over 12 million, creating the world's worst displacement crisis, according to the United Nations.
The IPC said that 24.6 million people representing around half of Sudan's population are projected to face "high levels of acute food insecurity" by May.
The RSF has been accused of indiscriminately bombing civilians and medical facilities, deliberately attacking residential areas and using mass starvation as a weapon of war.
