Paramilitary forces attack Sudan's Omdurman, killing dozens of civilians

Paramilitary shelling on the Sudanese city of Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, killed at least 65 people and wounded hundreds, according to the state's army-aligned governor.

A single shell on a passenger bus "killed everyone on board and turned 22 people into body parts," Khartoum governor Ahmed Othman Hamza said in a statement on Tuesday.

He called the attack a "massacre" by the "terrorist militia", referring to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023.

Sudan's government, including state leaders, remain loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan, at war with his former deputy RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

They have relocated from the war-ravaged capital to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, the makeshift seat of government which also hosts the United Nations and other aid agencies.

A medical source in Omdurman's Al-Nao hospital, one of the last facilities receiving patients in the area, told AFP the hospital received 15 of those killed in the attack on the bus, with another seven dying later in the hospital.

It had also "received 45 injured from different areas" of Omdurman, they added, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Targeting civilians, health workers

Tuesday saw some of the capital's fiercest battles between the army and the RSF this year.

"We haven't seen bombing this intense in six months," one eyewitness to the passenger bus shelling told AFP, also requesting anonymity.

Another eyewitness reported shelling from the Wadi Seidna army base, in northern Omdurman, towards RSF positions in western Omdurman and across the river in Bahri.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of targeting civilians, including health workers, and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.

Most of Omdurman is under army control, while the RSF holds Khartoum North (Bahri) just across the Nile River.

Residents have continuously reported shelling across both sides of the river, with bombs and shrapnel regularly striking homes and civilians.

The war has so far killed tens of thousands and uprooted over 11 million, creating what the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.

The healthcare system, already fragile before the war, has been crippled with up to 80 percent of health facilities in affected areas either closed or barely operational, the United Nations says.