Sudanese militia kills hundreds in hospital after fall of El Fasher

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed hundreds of patients and staff inside a hospital in El Fasher, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Sudan Doctors Network, after the paramilitary group claimed control of the city on Sunday.

- Rachel Savage

The WHO secretary general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was "appalled and deeply shocked" at reports that more than 460 people had been killed at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, without assigning blame, in a post on X.

"The Rapid Support Forces yesterday... killed in cold blood everyone they found inside the Saudi hospital," the Sudan Doctors Network, a medical group monitoring the civil war, said on Facebook yesterday.

Fighting has been raging between the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF since April 2023, when a power struggle within the military regime broke out into open conflict in the capital Khartoum and quickly spread across the country.

Sudan's army controls most of the country's north and east, having recaptured Khartoum in March 2025, while the RSF holds territory in the west and southwest. With the army having abandoned El Fasher, the RSF now holds all five of Darfur's regional capitals, while fighting continues in the southern region of Kordofan.

El Fasher, once a city of more than 1m people, has been under siege by the RSF since May 2024.