Shelling kills 16 civilians in Sudan’s El Fasher, doctors’ group says

October 1, 2025 (EL FASHER) – Shelling on the besieged city of El Fasher in North Darfur killed at least 16 civilians and wounded 21 others, a Sudanese doctors’ group said on Wednesday, accusing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing a “massacre.”

The RSF has intensified its assault on El Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in the vast Darfur region, in an effort to gain total control of the territory.

The Sudan Doctors Network said the casualties from Wednesday’s attacks, which included women and children, were the result of “deliberate rocket and drone shelling.” The group condemned the violence as a “horrific massacre” and said the events in the city amounted to “genocide committed by the RSF before the eyes of the world.”

In a separate report on the day’s violence, the El Fasher Resistance Committees said an RSF drone strike on a civilian gathering in the city’s Al-Daraja neighbourhood killed at least eight people.

The Al-Daraja neighbourhood has become a refuge for thousands of people displaced by the fighting.

The assault follows a pattern of deadly attacks on the city, including a Sept. 19 shelling on a mosque that killed 75 people and drew widespread international condemnation.

The relentless attacks have worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis in El Fasher. The city has been under a tight siege by the RSF for months, cutting off supplies of food and medicine for hundreds of thousands of trapped civilians, according to aid groups.