RSF attack kills 32 civilians in Sudan’s El Fasher, army says
April 11, 2025 (EL FASHER) – Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 32 civilians, including 10 children, in an attack using drones and heavy artillery on El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, on Friday, the army said.
The RSF also launched ground attacks on the nearby Zamzam camp for displaced people, the army and local activists said.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) 6th Infantry Division command in El Fasher said in a statement that the RSF launched a squadron of suicide drones starting Friday morning, alongside shelling from 120mm artillery and snipers positioned east and northeast of the city.
The SAF statement confirmed the death toll reached 32 by Friday afternoon, including four women and 10 children aged between one and five. Seventeen other people were injured, it said.
The SAF command warned shelling was ongoing and drones continued to operate over the city, urging residents to take precautions and stay off the streets.
The El Fasher Resistance Committees Coordination, an activist group, said the RSF launched two attacks on the Zamzam camp on Friday.
“For the first time, it is impossible to describe the ongoing massacres, starvation, and displacement,” the Coordination said in a statement. “For the first time, the massacres cannot be counted due to their frequency and simultaneity. But this time, the escalation comes while half the hospitals are destroyed and the markets are empty.”
“Previously, if there was a possibility of survival for severe injuries, now there is no chance of survival for moderate or even minor injuries,” the statement added.
The RSF also shelled the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people in El Fasher on Thursday and Wednesday, killing and wounding dozens of residents, according to earlier reports from activists. The camp houses tens of thousands of people.
Nureldayem Taha, assistant head of the Sudan Liberation Movement – Minni Minawi faction (SLM-MM), a group aligned with the army, said in a press statement that the RSF attack on Zamzam camp, the continued siege of El Fasher and the killing of innocents represented “a new stain of shame on the face of the world, and a violation of Security Council Resolution 2637.”
Taha criticized international silence over what he described as RSF crimes, saying it “is no longer mere inaction, but rather a shameful complicity reminiscent of the disgrace of the world’s silence on the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur.”
Clashes have escalated around El Fasher in recent weeks, with the RSF repeatedly targeting parts of the city, including displacement camps. El Fasher is the army’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.
Earlier this week, the RSF took control of the SAF’s 24th Brigade headquarters in Umm Kaddada locality, east of El Fasher. Control of the town on the Western Salvation Road is seen as key for the RSF to secure supply routes between North Darfur and West Kordofan state.