Inside the RSF’s brutal campaign against El Fasher’s healthcare
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Rapid Support Forces attacked al-Fasher’s Saudi Hospital in October, killing civilians and healthcare workers in a systematic assault on Sudan’s healthcare system.
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This satellite image taken by Airbus DS shows objects on the ground at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher, Sudan (AP)
As fighters from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) closed in on government-held positions in the besieged city of El Fasher last October, a skeleton medical team in the city’s last functioning hospital scrambled to treat the wounded pouring into a makeshift emergency room, Reuters reported on Friday.
According to the agency, shells rained down on the area surrounding the Saudi Hospital, injuring civilians and combatants alike. “It felt like the Day of Judgment,” one nurse told Reuters, describing how “we had to jump over bodies to reach the patients; we couldn’t bury them because drones were circling overhead.”
Another witness recounted that the bombardment continued the next day, October 26, and RSF fighters eventually entered the hospital.
On October 27, RSF fighters seized a trader, Abdullah Youssef, whom they had abducted along the road. He told Reuters he saw bodies scattered throughout the hospital complex, including children, women, elderly people, and patients who were unable to escape because of their medical conditions.
He said RSF fighters removed people from the hospital, holding some for ransom and killing others. “They took the young men and killed them on the road,” he said.
Unfolding catastrophe from Oct. 26 - 28
The World Health Organization said the shelling of the Saudi Hospital on October 26 killed a nurse and injured three other healthcare workers, adding that in a separate attack on October 28, more than 460 patients and their companions were shot dead.
Satellite imagery from October 26, cited by Reuters, shows what appear to be signs of mass killings at the Saudi Hospital. An analysis by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab found clusters of human-sized objects, adding that later images suggested bodies being burned, with clearly charred white remains and plumes of black smoke.
The October attacks by the RSF on the Saudi Hospital are a stark example of what doctors described as a “systematic campaign” by the forces to dismantle healthcare in the besieged city of El Fasher, as part of broader efforts to force out civilians and seize control of the capital of North Darfur state, Reuters reported.
