At least 17 people, including five children, were killed in an airstrike in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Saturday, health officials said
Posted Date – 06:00 AM, Sun – 6/18/23
At least 17 people, including five children, were killed in an airstrike in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Saturday, health officials said
Cairo: An airstrike in the Sudanese capital Khartoum killed at least 17 people, including five children, on Saturday, health officials said, as fighting continued between rival generals trying to take control of the country.
The attack was one of the deadliest clashes between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in downtown Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan.
It was not immediately clear whether the attack was carried out by an aircraft or a drone. Military aircraft have repeatedly targeted RSF units, and the RSF has reportedly used drones and anti-aircraft weapons against the military.
The conflict in Sudan erupted in mid-April, ending months of tension between military leaders and the Rapid Support Forces.
Saturday’s strike hit the Yormouk neighborhood south of Khartoum, which has been the focus of clashes in recent weeks, according to Sudan’s health ministry.
The area houses a military facility controlled by the army. At least 25 homes were destroyed, the ministry wrote in a Facebook post.
The dead included five children and an unknown number of women and elderly people, while some wounded had been taken to hospital, the ministry said.
A local group that calls itself “Emergency Room” and helps organize humanitarian aid in the area said at least 11 people were injured in the strike.
It released images of homes it said were damaged in the attack and people scouring the rubble. Other images purported to show an injured girl and a man.
Reporters Without Borders claimed in a statement that military aircraft bombed the area, causing civilian casualties. It claimed to have shot down a military MiG fighter jet.
The paramilitary group’s claims could not be independently confirmed. A spokesman for the military did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The conflict has thrown the African country into chaos, turning Khartoum and other urban areas into battlegrounds.
According to residents and activists, paramilitary forces have seized people’s homes and other civilian property since the conflict broke out.
The conflict has killed hundreds of civilians and injured thousands more. More than 2.2 million people have fled their homes for safer areas within Sudan or across borders into neighboring countries.
Along with Khartoum, fighting rages across Sudan’s sprawling Darfur region in western Sudan. Jenana, the provincial capital of West Darfur, has seen some of the deadliest fighting in the conflict, with thousands of residents fleeing to neighboring Chad.
Arab militias known as the Janjaweed have recently joined the RSF side in clashes in Genena, according to residents and activists.
The abduction and killing came hours after West Darfur Governor Khamis Abdalla Abkar accused RSF and allied Arab militias of attacking Genena in a television interview on Wednesday.
His killing was blamed on the RSF, an allegation the paramilitary force denies.
