Sudanese paramilitary group reportedly kills 43 in mosque drone strike, says a local medical group

CAIRO (AP) — A Sudanese paramilitary group reportedly killed 43 civilians while praying inside a mosque early Friday in the besieged city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, said a local medical group.

The Sudan Doctors Network said Friday on X that Muslim worshipers, including older people and children, were killed in a drone strike launched by the Rapid Support Forces, calling it a “heinous crime” against unarmed civilians that showed the group’s “blatant disregard for humanitarian and religious values and international law.”

The Resistance Committees in El Fasher, a group comprised of local citizens from the community that includes human rights activists, who track abuses, posted a video Friday reportedly showing parts of the mosque reduced to rubble with several bodies scattered on the site, now filled with debris. The Associated Press could not independently verify the footage.

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No details were shared about the exact location of the mosque, but the latest drone strike is among a series of attacks over the past week as the RSF and the army heavily clashed in El Fasher.

The fight between the army and the RSF escalated in April 2023, erupting into a civil war that has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, displaced as many as 12 million others and pushed many to the brink of famine. El Fasher has been at the epicenter of fighting for over a year between the two and is the military’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.

Intense fighting on Thursday centered in the western and southern parts of the city, where residents told the Darfur Victims Support Organization, which monitors abuses against civilians, that they heard loud explosions and saw drones being used, according to a statement by the nonprofit.

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The Resistance Committee in El Fasher said in a statement Thursday that the RSF targeted several unarmed civilians, including women and older adults, in displacement shelters in the city. The group also said Wednesday heavy artillery by the RSF continuously targeted residential neighborhoods.