Sudan: 14 members of the same family killed in a bombing, according to rescue workers

Fourteen members of the same family were killed in a bombing of a displaced persons camp in Darfur, western Sudan, which has been ravaged by war, a local group of volunteer rescuers said on Saturday, blaming the paramilitary forces.

The Abou Shouk camp, located near El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is facing famine like other regions of the country, according to the UN. El Fasher remains the last provincial capital in Darfur not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“Abou Shouk was subjected to intense bombing by the RSF on Friday evening,” the local committee said in a statement. “Fourteen Sudanese, all members of the same family, were killed,” and several others were injured, it reported.

The camp shelters tens of thousands of people who fled the violence of successive conflicts in Darfur and the war that has been tearing apart Africa’s third-largest country since 2023.

The RSF has bombarded the camp several times with artillery in recent weeks.

The camp is located near Zamzam camp, which was seized in April by the RSF after a devastating offensive that virtually emptied the camp, where nearly one million displaced people had taken refuge, according to the UN.

The war for control of power erupted on April 15, 2023, between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF commanded by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Paramilitary attacks on regions of Darfur and also in Port Sudan (east), the provisional seat of the Sudanese government, have intensified since the army regained control of the capital, Khartoum, at the end of March.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 13 million, and caused “one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters,” according to the UN.