Drone Strike on Besieged Sudan Mosque Kills Dozens Amid Escalating Darfur Siege

 

At least 70 worshippers were killed and dozens more injured when a drone strike hit a mosque during Friday prayers in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur region, according to medical and aid sources. The attack, blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), reduced the mosque to rubble, with rescuers still pulling bodies from the debris.

El Fasher — home to more than 260,000 civilians — has been under siege for over a year as the RSF battles Sudan’s army for control of the city, the military’s last stronghold in Darfur. Satellite imagery shows RSF advances into key military and humanitarian sites, including the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp, which shelters hundreds of thousands.

The United Nations condemned the strike as a grave violation of international humanitarian law, warning of the “increasing ethnicisation” of the conflict. Since fighting erupted in April 2023, Sudan’s civil war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and pushed vast swathes of the population to the brink of famine.