Five children killed as shelling, clashes hit Sudan’s El Fasher

June 16, 2025 (EL FASHER, North Darfur) – Shelling on the Sudanese city of El Fasher on Wednesday killed four girls and a boy, local sources said, as ground battles renewed between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The RSF has been attacking the North Darfur capital for weeks, and sources said the group was responsible for the artillery fire that struck the Al-Wadi neighbourhood. Clashes also erupted on the city’s eastern and southern fronts between the RSF and a joint force of the Sudanese army and allied armed movements.

The violence on Wednesday followed a deadly attack a day earlier. A spokesperson for the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people, north of the city, told the Sudan Tribune news outlet that six people were killed in the Nyvasha market on Tuesday when numerous rocket-propelled grenades hit it.

The humanitarian situation for thousands trapped in the city is deteriorating rapidly amid severe shortages of food and medicine.

“Living conditions in the camp are in a terrifying decline,” the camp spokesperson said, noting the price of a sack of millet, a local staple, had surged to about three million Sudanese pounds (approximately $1,400).

The sick and injured face grave difficulties due to a lack of life-saving drugs, he said, adding that medical facilities have suffered extensive damage from what he described as deliberate RSF shelling.

The escalation comes despite calls from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for a humanitarian truce to allow aid into the city. The RSF has been besieging El Fasher, the last major city in the vast Darfur region not under its control, and has been accused of preventing food and medicine from entering.