Sudan’s Al Fasher hospital out of service after attack — aid group

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

MSF on Sunday did not say who had attacked the hospital, the only hospital in Al Fasher capable of handling what it describes as daily mass casualty events.

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 centre, 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 Fasher 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.

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.

'Leaving city proves dangerous'

Al Fasher Emergency Response Room, a volunteer group, reported on Sunday that RSF fighters attacked the hospital on Saturday. During the raid, they killed and injured several people, stole medicine and an ambulance and forced the hospital to close.

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.

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.