5-11 October Sudan News Summary: El Fasher under attack from all sides

12 Oct

Arabic news roundup

By William Greenwood

Medical sources and eyewitnesses in El Fasher, North Darfur, revealed that approximately 100 people were killed and wounded in a drone strike targeting a shelter in the city on Friday evening and Saturday morning.
Eyewitness Mohamed Ahmed said that a drone flew over El Fasher yesterday evening before bombing the Dar Al-Arqam shelter and the headquarters of Omdurman Islamic University in the Al-Daraja Al-Awla neighbourhood in the west of the city.
Most of the deaths occurred inside the dirt shelters used by displaced people as cover from artillery and drone attacks.
The city witnessed intense artillery shelling on Friday, preventing Friday prayers and preventing civilians’ movement for fear of being bombed.

The Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab suggests that the RSF are currently committing systematic arson and ethnic cleansing in El Fasher, amidst a suffocating siege and deadly humanitarian shortages.
The report considers this a new phase of mass atrocities in Darfur, with growing signs of genocide and collective punishment against civilians trapped inside the city.
Satellite imagery taken on October 8, 2025, shows thermal damage consistent with deliberate burning of homes in the northern part of the Daraja Ula neighbourhood near Naivasha Market in El Fasher, with the lab also identifying a similar pattern of attacks in the Abu Shouk IDP camp in September.
The lab concludes that the RSF are carrying out systematic burning of civilian areas, accompanied by house-to-house searches apparently based on ethnicity.
Although the current damage does not cover large neighbourhoods, the pattern is consistent with the longstanding RSF practice of targeting communities on an ethnic basis.
Monitoring by the lab also showed repeated shelling of a shelter housing a community kitchen in the Daraja Ula neighbourhood

At least 13 people were killed and 20 others injured in an artillery attack by the RSF on a mosque housing displaced persons in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
The shelling occurred on Wednesday at the Old Mosque complex in the Abu Shouk al-Hilla neighbourhood, where more than 100 families fleeing the fighting had taken refuge, with the attack coming days after another mosque was targeted during dawn prayers.
Eyewitnesses confirmed that the shelling was carried out using heavy artillery and drones, directly targeting the mosque and several nearby homes.
Activists circulated video clips showing the extent of the destruction in shelters and the Saudi hospital which still operating in the city.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) strongly condemned the attacks launched by the Rapid Support Forces on El Fasher neighbourhoods, which targeted the Saudi Hospital and a mosque housing displaced persons, killing at least 20 civilians.

By Samuel Hunt

A drone strike on the Dar al-Arqam displacement shelter killed at least 57 people, including 22 women and 17 children, in one of the deadliest single attacks on civilians since the siege began.
An earlier attack on the Saudi hospital killed 12 medics, further crippling the already devastated health system and leaving civilians without access to life-saving care.
The ICRC warns that families are “eating once a day” and risking their lives to find undrinkable water, calling the situation “nothing short of catastrophic.”
Women and children are bearing the greatest burden—exposed to airstrikes, hunger, and disease with virtually no safe routes out and collapsing access to healthcare or protection.
Local doctors describe working under fire with no anaesthesia, electricity, or supplies—“not performing medicine, but performing miracles.”
All major exit routes to the el Fasher are now closed, trapping more than 260,000 civilians—mostly women and children—amid extreme shortages of food, water, and medicine. The city’s population has shrunk by 62%.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reports that checkpoints, looting, and drone attacks have blocked attempts to deliver aid across Darfur.
RSF and allied militias control most routes into North Darfur, including those leading to Tawila, preventing humanitarian convoys from delivering food or medical supplies. Local markets have collapsed, and families are resorting to foraging for wild foods to survive.
In Tawila, aid workers describe “ghost villages” where civilians are hiding in the hills to escape shelling and airstrikes, making coordinated deliveries nearly impossible.
The UN warns that famine is imminent in parts of North and Central Darfur, with starvation deaths already reported, and without a ceasefire, large-scale relief operations remain impossible.

From: UN, CBC

Colombian mercenaries have reportedly trained Sudanese child soldiers, some as young as nine, to handle firearms and fight in the ongoing conflict. These children are being placed directly in combat, exposing them to extreme danger and exploitation.
Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have used chlorine gas in attacks, causing severe respiratory injuries and fatalities among civilians, in violation of international law.
Both the recruitment of children and chemical attacks represent serious war crimes, intensifying the humanitarian crisis and putting civilians, especially the most vulnerable, at severe risk.

Bill Greenwood