In Sudan, at least 22 people were killed when the rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked the city of al-Fashir, a pro-democracy activist group said on Saturday, the worst toll after weeks of stalemate on that front in the country’s civil war.
The al-Fashir Resistance Committees said on Facebook that the RSF had fired artillery shells on markets, hospitals and residential apartments, and had used a drone to target a hospital.
The city is the national army’s last remaining position in the Darfur region of Sudan and a key front in the war with the RSF that has turned Sudan into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The activist group said it had counted 22 bodies and the casualty toll was expected to rise.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has in the past denied shelling civilian targets.
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.
Reports say that documents submitted to the UN Security Council recently pointed to the involvement of personnel from the United Arab Emirates. The passports were recovered in Omdurman, north of Khartoum, which was recently retaken from the RSF by the Sudanese national army.
The Gulf Emirate has however, always rejected accusations of arming the RSF. The other question is how much the US and the UK know about the shenanighans their Emirati ally is up to.
If the UAE is indeed involved with the RSF, it may explain why the war has gone on for so long and the apparently limitless supplies of arms, ammunition and other support the RSF is getting.
Some of this support reportedly includes thermobaric bombs being dropped on various targets by drones. Where did the drones come from, also the thermobaric bombs? The latter are highly destructive and cause enormous casualties.
