At least 54 people were killed and 158 wounded in a strike by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on a market in the city of Omdurman, the health ministry said in a statement.
AT LEAST 54 people were killed and 158 wounded on Saturday in a strike by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a market in the city of Omdurman, the health ministry said in a statement.
The RSF in a statement denied targeting the market and instead accused the Sudanese army of launching attacks targeting civilians.
Both the army and RSF have struck densely packed areas in a war that broke out in April 2023 over the integration of the two forces.
Earlier this week, after whirlwind gains for the Sudanese army and allies in the capital Khartoum, leaders hailed a turning point in the civil war, speaking to reporters from inside the army’s main headquarters that had been besieged since April 2023.
The recapture of the al-Jaili refinery in northern Bahri last week, along with swathes of the city across the Nile from Khartoum, set the stage for the breaking the siege of the army General Command on Friday, and for the army to finally solidify positive momentum in the almost two-year war with the paramilitary RSF.
Civilians could be seen by a Reuters witness cheering in the streets in Bahri and elsewhere, while soldiers surveyed the horizon from blown out windows at the central Khartoum base and celebrated as they roamed its grounds, at peace after a lengthy RSF onslaught.
“Inch by inch, we’ll go from here to al-Geneina, God willing,” said one soldier on Sunday, referring to the country’s westernmost city, one of the first to fall to the RSF early in the war, and where the RSF has been determined by the United States to have committed genocide.
An army leader described it as a turning point.
“From here, the armed forces will move forward to cleanse every remaining inch of our homeland, and from this point, we will see the return of all Sudanese from displacement, allowing them to resume their normal lives in their homeland with security, stability, and, God willing, peace,” said army chief of staff General Mohamed Othaman al-Hussein.
The war has displaced more than 12 million people, while plunging half the population into hunger, for which both the RSF and army are blamed.
– REUTERS