PORT SUDAN: Shelling by Sudanese paramilitaries killed 23 people in the besieged Darfur city of El Fasher on Saturday.

The capital of North Darfur state is the largest city in the vast western region not yet under control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been battling the regular army for more than a year and have laid siege to El Fasher since May.

The El Fasher Resista­nce Committee said in a statement published on its Facebook page that “deliberate bombing” by the paramilitary forces resulted in “23 martyrs”, all civilians, and 60 wounded.

Shelling of El Fasher last week killed 65 people, said the committee, one of hundreds across Sudan that used to organise pro-democracy protests and have coordinated frontline aid since the war began in April last year.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has said that by late June, 260 people had been killed in the fighting in El Fasher.

The war, which pits the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, against the army headed by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, has killed tens of thousands with some estimates as high as 150,000.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2024