At least 22 killed in RSF attack on Sudan’s al-Fashir

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Smoke plumes billow from a fire at a lumber warehouse in southern Khartoum amidst ongoing fighting on June 7, 2023. Eight weeks of fighting have pitted Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- commonly known as Hemeti -- who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). A number of broken ceasefires have offered brief lulls but no respite for residents of Khartoum, where witnesses again reported "the sound of heavy artillery fire" in the capital's northwest. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

 A pro-democracy group said Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed at least 22 people in an attack on the city of al-Fashir in the western Darfur region on Saturday, though the paramilitary force denied launching an assault.

The al-Fashir Resistance Committees said on Facebook that the RSF had fired artillery shells on markets, hospitals and apartments in a surge of violence after weeks of stalemate on that front in the country’s civil war.

The activist group also said the RSF used a drone to target a hospital.

It later said a total of 97 people were killed or injured in the assault.

The RSF dismissed the report and said it did not clash with the army or allied groups in al-Fashir.

The city is the national army’s last remaining position in the Darfur region, and a key front in its war with the RSF that has turned Sudan into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

More than 300,000 people have fled their homes in al-Fashir as a result of fighting that began in April, the United Nations has said.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES

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