Scores reported killed in attack on mosque in Sudan's contested city of El Fasher

RSF paramilitary accused of carrying out drone strike that killed civilians during morning prayers

People line up for free meals in El Fasher, which has been under siege from Sudan's Rapid Support Forces for about 18 months. AFP

A drone strike by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces on Friday killed scores of people at a mosque in the western city of El Fasher that the paramilitary group is trying to seize from the army, medical and civil society groups said.

The Sudan Doctors Network said in a post on X that 43 people were killed in the strike carried out during dawn prayers. The Darfur Victims Support Organisation, an NGO in North Darfur state where El Fasher is the capital, said it had spoken to relatives of the victims and put the death toll at about 70.

The Resistance Committees in El Fasher, a group comprised of local citizens, posted a video purportedly showing parts of the mosque reduced to rubble and several bodies. The footage could not be independently verified.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF on the incident.

The fall of El Fasher, which has been under RSF siege for about 18 months, would hand the paramilitary full territorial dominance over the western Darfur region. The UN and rights groups have already reported mass atrocities in the region, including ethnically targeted killings.

Residents reported intense fighting and loud explosions in the western and southern parts of the city on Thursday, with drones being used, the Darfur Victims Support Organisation said.

The war between the RSF and the army, which began in April 2023 after growing tensions between their leaders, has devastated Sudan and created a humanitarian crisis in the north African country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, more than 13 million displaced from their homes, and left about 25 million – half the population – facing acute hunger.

After 29 months of fighting, the army controls the capital and the eastern, northern and central regions of the country. The RSF, which was driven out of the capital and central regions earlier this year, remains in control of Darfur, except for El Fasher, and parts of Kordofan.

The RSF's creation of a new administration, based in the Darfur city of Nyala, to rival the army-backed government in Port Sudan, has raised fears about a division of the country.

Both sides in the war have been accused of abuses, including indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, targeting of ethnic groups and sexual violence. The UN envoy to Sudan warned earlier this year of a growing “ethnicisation of the conflict”.

The UN human rights office said on Friday that there has been a significant rise in civilian killings during the first half of this year due to growing ethnic violence.

At least 3,384 civilians were killed between January and June, mostly in Darfur, according to a new report by the Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights.

The figure is equivalent to nearly 80 per cent of the civilian casualties in Sudan documented last year.

“Every day we are receiving more reports of horrors on the ground,” OHCHR Sudan representative Li Fung told reporters in Geneva.

The majority of killings resulted from artillery shelling as well as air and drone strikes in densely populated areas, the OHCHR said. It noted many deaths occurred during the RSF's offensive in El Fasher as well as the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps for displaced people in April.

At least 990 civilians were killed in summary executions in the first half of the year, the report found, with the number between February and April tripling.

That was driven by a surge mainly in Khartoum after Sudanese Armed Forces and allied fighters recaptured the city from the RSF in late March, the OHCHR said.

“One witness who observed SAF search operations in civilian neighbourhoods in East Nile, Khartoum between March and April, said that he saw children as young as 14 or 15 years of age, accused of being RSF members, summarily killed,” OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said.