UN calls for end to siege in Sudan

RSF shoots 460+ at maternity hospital

- 

Guterres: 'Gravely concerned'

UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to military escalation in Sudan yesterday after reports that more than 460 people were shot dead in a maternity hospital by paramilitary forces.

Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries which recently seized the city of El-Fasher from army forces, has vowed the country would be unified by “peace or through war’.

The capture of El-Fasher, the last army holdout in the vast western region of Darfur, comes after more than 18 months of brutal siege, sparking fears of a return to the ethnically targeted atrocities of 20 years ago.

Accusations of mass Killings have mounted, with the World Health Organization (WHO) condemning reports that 460 people were killed at the Saudi Maternity Hospital, the last partially functional hospital in El-Fasher.

The WHO said the hospital was on Sunday “attacked for the fourth time in amonth, killing one nurse and injuring three other health workers’.

Two days later, “six health workers, four doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist, were abducted” and “more than 460 patients and their companions were reportedly shot and killed in the hospital,” the organisation said.