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16-01-2025
KHARTOUM: At least 120 people are reported to have been killed in random shelling on Monday in the Dar-Salam area of the Sudanese city of Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, according to a local volunteer network.
The Ombada Emergency Response Room said the death toll was provisional, suggesting that the number of victims could rise.
Rescuers say medical supplies are running low as health workers struggle to treat large numbers of people with injuries from bombardments.
Sudan’s civil war, now 21 months old, has killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 12 million and pushed the country to the brink of famine, in what the UN describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
It began last year after the leadership of the army and a paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fell out over the future direction of the country.
The Ombada Emergency Response Room did not specify who was behind the attack in Omdurman.
Volunteers and emergency response teams have faced challenges accessing certain areas because of ongoing fighting.
Most of Omdurman is under army control while the RSF holds the capital and part of the greater Khartoum area.
In the last past few weeks, the army has stepped up its offensive in Omdurman aiming to regain control. The army is reported to have seized three areas and confiscated weapons left behind by the paramilitary forces.
RSF fighters are pushing back from positions in two neighborhoods. Residents on both sides of the Nile have reported shelling across the river, with bombs and shrapnel regularly striking homes and civilians.
“The area has been devastated by prolonged fighting exposing residents to stray bullets and shrapnel striking homes,” the Ombada Emergency Response Room said.
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, which support local communities amid the ongoing conflict, to shut several health centres affecting provision of medical services to thousands of residents.
War-hit Sudan is sliding into a “widening famine crisis” that has been marked by worsening starvation and a surge in acute malnutrition, an independent group of food security experts says.
Famine has spread to five areas, with 24.6 million people about half the population in urgent need of food aid, the experts said.
The hunger crisis has been caused by the 20-month civil war that has devastated Sudan.
Various mediation efforts aimed at ending the conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have so far failed.
The army and RSF had jointly staged a coup in 2021, but a power struggle between their commanders plunged the country into a civil war in 2023.
It has led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with the UN-backed Famine Review Committee (FRC) warning that a “greater catastrophe” could unfold if the conflict did not end.
The committee is linked to the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC), a global initiative by UN agencies, aid groups and governments to identify famine conditions.
On Monday, Sudan’s military-backed government announced it was suspending its cooperation with the group, accusing it of issuing “unreliable reports that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and dignity”, media reports. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
