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04-02-2025
KHARTOUM: Shelling at a busy market near Sudan’s capital has filled a mortuary with bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says.
MSF and the Sudanese authorities said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were responsible for Saturday’s attack in the city of Omdurman, which killed and injured more than 100 people, a claim the RSF has denied.
The majority of those killed at the market were women and children, the Sudanese Doctors’ Union says.
The RSF and Sudan’s army have been locked in a civil war that, over 22 months, has killed tens of thousands and sparked what the UN describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
In the past few weeks, the army has stepped up its offensive in Omdurman, which lies across the River Nile from capital city, Khartoum, aiming to regain complete control from the RSF.
Eyewitnesses told media that Saturday’s artillery shelling had come from western Omdurman, where the RSF remains in control.
Saturday’s explosion caused “utter carnage” at the nearby Al Nao hospital, which was overwhelmed with injured patients, MSF general secretary Chris Lockyear said.
The Sudanese Doctors’ Union appealed for nearby medics to assist at the hospital, saying there was an “acute shortage of medical staff”.
It added that one shell had fallen “metres away” from the hospital on Saturday.
One survivor of the market attack told media “the shells hit in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why the victims and the wounded are so many.”
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians, including health workers, and indiscriminate shelling of residential areas.
The recent skirmishes have forced emergency response rooms to shut several health centres, affecting the provision of medical services to thousands of residents.
A convoy carrying food aid has arrived in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, for the first time since civil war erupted in April 2023.
The country is currently experiencing the “world’s worst hunger crisis”, according to the United Nations, as a result of fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
When trucks loaded with aid rolled into south Khartoum on Thursday, there were “tears of laughter and joy”, humanitarian worker Duaa Tariq told media.
Aid agencies have long complained that security threats and roadblocks set up by the warring sides have hampered vital deliveries.
In order for Thursday’s breakthrough to take place, UN agencies and Sudanese community groups negotiated with the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
“There were tears, tears of laughter and joy and tears of a lot of effort and exhaustion from arranging this… it was quite a moment,” Tariq, who works with Sudanese humanitarian group Emergency Response Rooms, told media.
The convoy consisted of 28 trucks. UNICEF which sent five of the vehicles, said it was able to deliver “life-saving” food and health supplies to Al Bashayer Hospital and other health facilities in Khartoum.
“Here in Khartoum, (we are in) desperate need of this aid. We’ve been waiting for it and we’ve been trying so many ways and methods to go around this, but the only way to help reduce the famine effect in Khartoum right now, is to receive this aid,” Tariq said.
About half the population 24.6 million people, is in urgent need of food aid, said the Integrated Food Phase Classification. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
