Hospital in Sudan’s Al-Fashir Shut after Attack, Aid Group Says

This picture taken on May 30, 2024, shows damaged shops in Omdurman. (AFP)
This picture taken on May 30, 2024, shows damaged shops in Omdurman. (AFP)
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Hospital in Sudan’s Al-Fashir Shut after Attack, Aid Group Says

This picture taken on May 30, 2024, shows damaged shops in Omdurman. (AFP)
This picture taken on May 30, 2024, shows damaged shops in Omdurman. (AFP)

The main hospital in Sudan's al-Fashir city has been attacked and put out of service, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which supports the facility, told Reuters on Sunday, while local volunteers blamed the incident on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The city, in the Darfur region of northwestern Sudan, is home to more than 1.8 million residents and displaced people, and is the latest front in a war between the Sudanese army and the RSF which began in April 2023.

The RSF, which has taken over the capital Khartoum and most of western Sudan, is also seeking to advance further within the center, as United Nations agencies say the people of Sudan are at "imminent risk of famine".

Some 130,000 people have fled their homes in al-Fashir as a result of the fighting in April and May, the United Nations has said.

The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.

MSF did not say who had attacked the hospital, the only hospital in al-Fashir capable of handling what it describes as daily mass casualty events.

From May 10 to June 6, some 1,315 wounded arrived at the facility and 208 people have died there, but many people are not able to reach the hospital due to the fighting, MSF said.

Michel-Olivier Lacharite, head of MSF emergency operations, told Reuters that the hospital had previously started evacuating patients after being impacted by fighting three times since May 25.

The al-Fashir Emergency Response Room, a volunteer group, said on Sunday that RSF fighters raided the hospital on Saturday, killing and injuring several people and looting medicine and an ambulance and forcing the hospital to shut.

An eyewitness told Reuters he saw people evacuating the hospital, and other eyewitnesses said the RSF had launched missiles at the hospital and its vicinity.

A separate attack on Saturday on the Abu Shouk camp to the north of the city impacted another medical center, injured more than 30, and killed at least two, the camp committee and a volunteer said.

A report last week from The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab said some 40 settlements outside the city have been struck with arson attacks since March.

Local residents have blamed the RSF for the attacks.

Leaving the city has proven dangerous, as residents say those fleeing have been attacked and even killed on the main RSF-controlled road out of the city.

Most of those leaving have taken routes either south to Zamzam camp, or west to the Tawila and Jebel Mara areas, which are controlled by armed groups, including the faction of the Sudan Liberation Army headed by Abdelwahid Mohamed Nour, an aid worker and residents said.



Two Officials: Israel is Being Attacked Daily by One-Way Drones from Iraq

A member of the Israeli security forces works next to a damaged car at the site of a drone attack, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Karmiel, northern Israel October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
A member of the Israeli security forces works next to a damaged car at the site of a drone attack, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Karmiel, northern Israel October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
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Two Officials: Israel is Being Attacked Daily by One-Way Drones from Iraq

A member of the Israeli security forces works next to a damaged car at the site of a drone attack, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Karmiel, northern Israel October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
A member of the Israeli security forces works next to a damaged car at the site of a drone attack, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Karmiel, northern Israel October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Iranian-backed militias are launching one-way attack drones against Israel from inside Iraq, which US and partner forces have had to intercept, two officials told The Associated Press.
Both a US defense official and a regional security official said the one-way drones have been an issue since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, and aren’t a retaliation from Iran for Israel’s strikes last week.
However the drone attacks have increased in number in recent weeks. There’s been an average of about five launches a day from within Iraq targeting Israel by Iranian-aligned militia groups, and within the last week, eight UAVs were fired in one 24-hour period, the regional security officer said.
US and partnered forces have been intercepting the attack drones, both officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public on the Iraq-launched drone attacks.
The ongoing launches have increased the chance that Israel will respond directly to those attacks, the regional security official said.