Local activists reported that on Sunday, at least 40 individuals lost their lives, and many more were injured in army airstrikes in the southern part of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
The updated casualty count makes the attack on Sunday morning among the most devastating single assaults in the conflict that began in April as power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the Rapid Support Forces.
“At about 7:15 am (0515 GMT), military aircraft bombarded the Qouro market area,” said the local resistance committee, one of many groups that used to organise pro-democracy protests and now provides assistance during the war.
“The number of victims of the Quoro market massacre” had risen to 40 by the afternoon, the committee said, revising its previous toll of 30 killed.
The committee noted that additional fatalities were anticipated as casualties continued to arrive at the nearby Bashair hospital.
Meanwhile, the hospital issued an “urgent appeal,” calling on all healthcare professionals in the vicinity to lend their assistance in addressing the “increasing number of injured people arriving”.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said that army was continuing its brutal crimes against civilians and accused the military of intentionally targeting civilian residential areas.
“The air massacres of the Burhan militia and the brigades of the former regime against innocent citizens continue, amid silence from the international media by not reporting the tragedies to which innocent civilians are exposed due to aerial and artillery bombardment.”
“The brutal violations committed by the remnants of the former regime against the residents of Khartoum through indiscriminate bombing have claimed thousands of civilian casualties in violation of all divine laws, human rights laws, and international humanitarian law,” the group’s statement said.
According to a cautious assessment by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, approximately 7,500 individuals have tragically lost their lives in the nearly five months of ongoing conflict.
It is widely believed that the actual number of casualties is significantly higher, given the complete cutoff of access to many areas and the lack of official declarations of losses by the warring factions.
The conflict, primarily centered in Khartoum and the western Darfur region, has resulted in the displacement of nearly five million individuals, as reported by the United Nations.
Multiple international efforts have failed to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict.
