Khartoum (AFP) – At least seven people were killed and 71 injured on Saturday in an airstrike by the Rapid Support Forces on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan, a medical source said Sunday, as these forces launched their fiercest attacks on the besieged city.

Sudan has been witnessing a deadly war since April 2023 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler since the 2021 coup, and the Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed “Hemeti.” This conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and millions displaced.

The Rapid Support Forces have imposed a siege since May of the same year on El Fasher, the only major city in the Darfur region still under army control.

Since the army took control of Khartoum in March, the Rapid Support Forces have intensified their attacks on El Fasher and its surrounding camps in an attempt to tighten their grip on western Sudan.

The latest attack targeted densely populated neighborhoods in the western part of the city near the airport, which these forces are trying to seize.

The medical source at El Fasher hospital, who requested anonymity, expected “the number of casualties to be higher because some could not reach the hospital due to the intensity of the shelling.”

The source, contacted via satellite due to communication outages, said that among the wounded, most suffering from shrapnel injuries, 22 cases are critical.

El Fasher, threatened by famine, has become isolated from the world, with no humanitarian aid.

The few hospitals still operating there are repeatedly shelled, while the Rapid Support Forces have taken control of the local police headquarters.

“Killing Box”

Satellite images from Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab on Thursday revealed that the Rapid Support Forces have built more than 31 kilometers of high earthen barriers, “creating a real killing box” in the city, according to the report.

Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, told AFP that the Rapid Support Forces have besieged the Sudanese army and allied groups within less than 12.9 kilometers of the city.

He added, “It is the smallest area since the siege began.” For more than a year, the besieged population, estimated by the United Nations at around 300,000 people, has suffered severe shortages of water and food, according to humanitarian workers.

UNICEF warns that El Fasher has become “a focal point of children’s suffering.”

The United Nations declared famine in the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps near El Fasher, warning that 40 percent of children suffer from severe or acute malnutrition.

Many residents have resorted to eating animal feed, and desperate attempts to flee the city often end in death due to cold, hunger, or violence.

“Massacres”

Raymond said, “The way of life is ending,” adding that people “are dying in poverty and under gunfire and shelling, and are killed while trying to escape.”

Satellite images from Yale University showed cemetery expansions in recent months.

Raymond noted, “The most worrying part is when there is no one left to dig graves anymore.”

The Rapid Support Forces originated from the Janjaweed militia launched by former President Omar al-Bashir more than two decades ago in Darfur, where atrocities were committed in the early 2000s.

According to the United Nations, the Darfur war from 2003 until its end in 2020 caused about 300,000 deaths and 2.5 million displaced and refugees.

If the Rapid Support Forces succeed in capturing El Fasher, they will have control over all five Darfur states.

Experts warned that the non-Arab Zaghawa tribe in the city may face a fate similar to the non-Arab Masalit tribe in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, where UN experts reported that about 15,000 people, mostly from the tribe, were killed in 2023 in massacres attributed to the Rapid Support Forces.

Raymond commented, “The Janjaweed are on the verge of winning the entire genocide that began at the start of the 21st century… and the world will do nothing about it.”