Scores killed by drone strike targeting mosque in besieged Sudanese city

A drone strike by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher has killed 75 people worshipping in a mosque, first responders have said, as the group continued its push to capture the last foothold of Sudan’s army in the Darfur region.

- Carlos Mureithi

The attack, one of the deadliest this year in the city, hit the al-Daraja neighbourhood, where civilians from the famine-hit Abu Shouk displacement camp had fled after it was overrun by fighters.

“The bodies were retrieved from the rubble of the mosque,” said the Emergency Response Room volunteer group. Social media videos show bodies trapped under rubble and debris.

RSF has not commented on the incident. The paramilitary group has been engaged in a raging civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023 but after the army’s capture of the capital, Khartoum, in March, RSF has been fighting to maintain territorial dominance of Darfur, its stronghold.

El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, is the last remaining capital in the region controlled by the Sudanese army and has been under siege for more than a year.

Research from Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab shows the RSF is building an earthen wall around it to trap people inside.