At least 40 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in an army airstrike on a market in southern Khartoum, a local volunteer group said in a statement on Sunday, the biggest single casualty since Sudan’s war began in April. It is an incident. ,
As the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) approaches five months, air and artillery attacks on residential areas have intensified, but neither side has declared victory and there have been no signs of mediation. Has shown solid signs.
Drones launched heavy airstrikes Sunday morning on southern Khartoum, a large district of the city mainly held by the RSF, a witness who witnessed the attack said. reutersAsked not to reveal identity due to security reasons.
Images shared by a group of local volunteers called the Southern Khartoum Emergency Room showed several women and men injured as well as bodies covered in clothes, some piled together.
The residents of the area are day laborers who, cut off from jobs, are too poor to afford to flee the capital.
Mohammed Abdullah, a spokesman for the emergency room that tried to provide medical and other services, said the injured had to be carried on rickshaws or donkey carts.
Read also: massacre in khartoum
In a statement, RSF accused the Sudanese army of carrying out the attack as well as other attacks. The Sudanese military denied responsibility and blamed the RSF.
“Our aim is only to attack enemy groups and stations in different areas,” said Brigadier General Nabeel Abdullah. reuters,
While the RSF have spread into residential areas in the capital Khartoum and neighboring Bahri and Omdurman, the army has taken advantage of heavy artillery and airstrikes to push them back, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties.
At least 51 people were killed in attacks on two separate days in western Omdurman last week. With most hospitals closed and local government not functioning, volunteers are struggling to document the full extent of the deaths.
Medical aid agency MSF, which operates Bashir Hospital in southern Khartoum, said on social media network X that the attack took place at 7 a.m. in the crowded Goro market and at least 60 people were injured. Doctors had stopped trying to count because of the operation on torn body parts.
Emergency coordinator Mary Burton said, “Khartoum has been at war for almost six months. But still, volunteers… are shocked and overwhelmed by the horrors that happened in the city today.”
On Friday, the southern Khartoum emergency room said in a statement that the hospital, one of the few hospitals still operating, was threatened with closure as supplies ran out and staff struggled to reach it. Was falling.
The army and the Rapid Support Forces began fighting on 15 April, after tensions arose over the integration of their troops into a new transition to democracy. Although several countries have initiated mediation efforts, none have succeeded in stopping the fighting.
