Doctors at one of the last functioning hospitals in the besieged Sudanese city of el-Fasher say they were forced to close the facility after it came under attack.
The hospital was supported by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which described it as the only one left in el-Fasher where injured civilians could receive treatment.
For several days there were reports of projectiles hitting the city’s South Hospital, causing injuries and deaths.
But now eyewitnesses say fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) entered the premises.
On Saturday, they went to the hospital and opened fire, looting drugs and medical equipment, stealing an ambulance and attacking staff.
“Due to the chaos, our team was unable to check if there were any dead or injured,” the acting head of the medical mission in Sudan, Maximilien Kowalski, told BBC Newsday.
“The hospital is very close to the front line, so it will remain closed for now.”
Fuel, electricity and water supplies are still down at a nearby, dilapidated hospital where MSF is having to move its el-Fasher operations, Kowalski says, leaving injured civilians with nowhere to go for at least a week.
Saturday’s attack is yet another sign that there are no rules in the Sudanese civil war.
The Sudanese national army, which has been fighting the RSF for the past year, has also been accused of widespread abuses.
But in this case the RSF forced the closure of a hospital where civilians were being treated.
It is widely reported that the paramilitary force is supported by the United Arab Emirates – local authorities deny this.
Across the country, more than 15,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the conflict began in April 2023, while almost nine million have been forced to flee their homes – more than in any other conflict in the world.
The RSF took control of Gezira state, south of the capital, Khartoum, in December and has been accused of committing numerous abuses against civilians – which it denies.
Last week, at least 150 people, including 35 children, were massacred by suspected RSF forces in the village of Wad al-Nourah in Gezira state.
In Darfur, human rights groups said the RSF is using rape as a weapon of war and is targeting darker-skinned Masalit people and other non-Arab groups in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Several rounds of peace talks failed to end the war, which began when the two generals leading the army and the RSF, respectively, fell out.
UN agencies say the fighting has triggered the world’s biggest displacement crisis and that millions of people face a catastrophe of hunger as a result.
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