A drone strike on a mosque killed more than 70 people during morning prayers in the besieged city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, at dawn on Friday, local authorities said, in one of the deadliest single attacks the city has seen since the conflict began.
Local authorities accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia of carrying out the attack.
Sudan’s Sovereign Council condemned the “repeated targeting of civilians and places of worship,” stating that “such crimes represent a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and demand accountability,” according to the state-run Sudan News Agency (SUNA).
The Darfur regional government said in a statement that the “heinous massacre was committed by the RSF militia,” putting the death toll at over 70.
The Sudan Doctors Network said a drone targeted the mosque during Fajr prayers and that the dead included elderly people, youths and children, with many worshippers also seriously injured. A video published by the El Fasher Resistance Committees showed parts of the mosque reduced to rubble, with bodies visible at the debris-strewn site.
The strike comes amid an escalation of fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese army in the besieged city, where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating amid ongoing clashes and shortages of medical and food supplies.
The Sudan Doctors Network called on the international community, the United Nations, and the African Union to “apply serious pressure to stop these crimes, ensure the protection of civilians, and open immediate humanitarian corridors.”
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned the incident as “deeply shocking” and called for an immediate de-escalation, accountability for the warring parties, and the protection of civilians. “For too long the warring parties have shown a flagrant disregard for humanitarian law,” she said on X, formerly Twitter.
Civilian casualties surge
On Friday, the UN human rights office said that the number of civilian casualties in Sudan had risen sharply in the first half of the year amid escalating ethnically-based violence.
Violence against civilians has reached appalling levels since the conflict erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the RSF, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
According to a new report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 3,384 civilians were killed between January and June, mostly in Darfur.
“Every day we receive more reports of horrors on the ground,” Li Fung, the commissioner’s representative in Sudan, told a press conference in Geneva.
The commissioner’s office said the majority of killings resulted from artillery shelling, as well as airstrikes and drones in densely populated areas. The report noted that many deaths occurred during the RSF’s attack on El Fasher and on the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps for displaced people in April.
The report also found that “approximately 990 civilians were killed in summary executions during the first half of the year, with the number tripling from February to April.”
