KHARTOUM: Shelling by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces killed at least seven people and wounded 71 others in El-Fasher, a medical source said on Sunday, as the paramilitary group launched its fiercest offensive yet on the besieged city.

El-Fasher, the last major city in the vast western Darfur region still under army control, has become the most violent front line in the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023.

In recent weeks, paramilitary forces have escalated their long-running siege, launching fierce artillery barrages and ground incursions into densely populated neighbourhoods, the city’s airport and the famine-hit Abu Shouk displacement camp.

The few hospitals still operational have been repeatedly bombarded and the local police headquarters captured by the RSF.

The medical source said the true toll from Saturday’s attack was “likely higher”, as many injured had been unable to reach the hospital due to the intensity of the RSF’s strikes.

Among the wounded, mostly suffering from shrapnel injuries, 22 were reported to be in a critical condition, according to the source, who was reached via satellite internet to bypass a communications blackout.

Local activists said the attack struck several neighbourhoods in the city’s west near the airport, which RSF forces have sought to capture.

The RSF, which evolved from the Janjaweed Arab militias accused of genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, is seeking to wrest full control of the region from the army after being pushed out of the capital Khartoum earlier this year.

Satellite imagery from Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab revealed Thursday that the RSF had constructed more than 31 kilometres of berms — raised earth barriers — “creating a literal kill box” in the city, the report said.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2025