Sudan’s paramilitary ‘killed hundreds including hospital patients in Darfur’
Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people including patients in a hospital after they seized el-Fasher city in the western Darfur region over the weekend, according to the UN, displaced residents and aid workers.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), said in a statement that 460 patients and companions were reportedly killed at Saudi Maternity Hospital in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.
He said the WHO was “appalled and deeply shocked” by the reports.
The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical group tracking the war, said fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Tuesday “cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside the Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions, and anyone else present in the wards”.
Mini Minawi, the governor of Darfur, shared a video online, which purported to show RSF fighters inside the Saudi Maternity Hospital.
The minute-long footage shows bodies lying on the floor in pools of blood. A fighter fires a single shot from a Kalashnikov-style rifle into a lone man sitting up, who then slumps to the floor. Other bodies could be seen outside.
The Associated Press could not independently verify the date, location or condition under which the video was recorded.
Sudanese residents and aid workers also described some of the atrocities carried out by the RSF, fighting since 2023 to take over Africa’s third largest nation, after they seized the army’s last stronghold in Darfur after more than 500 days of siege.
“The Janjaweed showed no mercy for anyone,” said Umm Amena, a mother of four children who fled the city on Monday after two days, using a Sudanese term for the RSF.
RSF commander General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo on Wednesday acknowledged what he called “abuses” by his forces.
In his first comments since the fall of el-Fasher, posted on the Telegram messaging app, he said an investigation was opened. He did not elaborate.
The RSF has been accused by the UN and rights groups of atrocities throughout the war, including a 2023 attack on another Darfur city, Geneina, where hundreds of people were killed.
Amena was among three dozen people, mostly women and children, who were detained for a day by RSF fighters in an abandoned house close to the Saudi Hospital in el-Fasher.
The AP spoke to Amena and four others who managed to flee el-Fasher and arrived exhausted and dehydrated early on Tuesday in the nearby town of Tawila, around 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of el-Fasher, which already hosts more than 650,000 displaced.
The UN migration agency said about 35,000 people have fled el-Fasher, mostly to rural areas around it, since Sunday.
UN refugee agency official Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said that the new arrivals told stories of widespread ethnic and politically motivated killings, including reports of people with disabilities shot dead because they were unable to flee, and others shot as they tried to escape.
Witnesses told the AP that RSF fighters – on foot, riding on camels, or in vehicles – went from house to house, beating and shooting at people, including women and children.
Many died of gunshot wounds in the streets, some while trying to flee to safety, the witnesses said.
“It was a like a killing field,” Tajal-Rahman, a man in his late 50s, said over the phone from the outskirts of Tawila.
“Bodies everywhere and people bleeding and no-one to help them.”
Both Amena and Tajal-Rahman said that RSF fighters tortured and beat the detainees and shot at least four people on Monday who later died of wounds.
They also sexually assaulted women and girls, they said.
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