At least 22 people were killed in an airstrike in a Sudanese city on Saturday, according to health officials, making it the bloodiest bombing in the three months of conflict between the country’s rival generals.
According to a brief statement from the health ministry, the attack happened in Omdurman’s Dar es Salaam area, which is a nearby city to the capital Khartoum. Unknown numbers of individuals were injured in the attack, it claimed.
The ministry published video footage that showed individuals attempting to rescue the victims from the rubble as well as dead bodies on the ground covered in sheets. Others made an effort to assist the injured. Cries of people could be heard.
The assault was among the worst during the battle in Sudan’s capital city and other metropolitan regions. The military is at odds with the Rapid Support Forces, a potent paramilitary organization. At least 17 people, including 5 children, were murdered in an airstrike in Khartoum last month.
According to residents, combat has been raging between the opposing factions in Omdurman, and the RSF has blamed the military for Saturday’s attack and subsequent strikes on residential areas. According to reports, the military has tried to shut off a vital supply route for the paramilitary force there.
On Saturday, a military spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.
It was difficult, according to two Omdurman residents, to identify the perpetrators of the attack. They claimed that RSF forces in the area have been routinely attacked by military planes, and that the paramilitary group has retaliated by using drones and anti-aircraft weapons.
According to Abdel-Rahman, one of the residents who asked to be identified only by his first name out of concern for his safety, the military was fighting the RSF at the time of the attack early on Saturday, and the RSF used civilian homes as shields and fired anti-aircraft ammunition at the attacking jets.
People are unable to leave because of the constant violence, he claimed, describing the location as “a hell.”
Mid-April saw the start of the conflict, which ended months of rising hostilities between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, under the direction of Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. 18 months had passed since the two generals’ military coup in October 2021, which overthrew a civilian transitional government with support from the West.
In television remarks made last month, Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim stated that more than 3,000 people had died and more than 6,000 others had been injured as a result of the conflicts. According to U.N. statistics, more than 2.9 million people have left their homes in search of safety in other parts of Sudan or in neighboring nations.
Martin Griffiths, the head of humanitarian affairs for the UN, described the Sudan as “a place of great terror” on Friday. He bemoaned “the appalling crimes” and the forced eviction of hundreds of thousands of people happening all over the nation.
Khartoum and other urban centres have been converted into battlegrounds, and the violence has thrown the African nation into chaos. Since the beginning of the crisis, paramilitary forces have reportedly occupied homes and other civilian properties, according to locals and activists. In addition, there were reports of extensive vandalism and theft in Omdurman and Khartoum.
In Khartoum and the western Darfur region, which have experienced some of the worst fighting in the Sudan, there have been reports of sexual assault, including the rape of women and girls. Nearly all cases of reported sexual assault were attributed to the RSF, which has ignored repeated demands for comment.
A “prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigation” into the rising reports of sexual violence against women and girls was demanded by senior U.N. officials on Wednesday, including Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
42 rape incidents were reported in Khartoum and 46 in Darfur, according to the Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence on Women, a government agency that keeps track of sex assaults on women.
The Save the Children charity said that there may have been 4,400 incidences of sexual violence since the fighting started on April 15; however, the unit stated that the figure likely reflected only 2% of the actual number of cases.
According to Arif Noor, director of Save the Children in Sudan, “Sexual violence continues to be used as a tool to terrorize women and children in Sudan.” “Children as young as 12 are being targeted for their gender, their ethnicity, and their vulnerability.”
