At least 80 people were killed over the weekend in North Darfur State as drone attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) struck civilian-populated areas, continuing a devastating cycle of aerial warfare that increasingly erases the line between military and civilian targets.
The RSF launched drone and artillery strikes on El Fasher – hitting a displacement and religious sanctuary – while the Sudanese army bombed the RSF-held town of Al-Kuma, targeting a social gathering.
The incidents underscore how both factions – each claiming to defend the nation – have turned their weapons on communities they perceive as sympathetic to the other, transforming the war into an ethnically charged campaign of collective punishment.
According to witnesses and footage verified by Sudan War Monitor, RSF-operated drones and artillery struck Dar Al-Arqam, a religious displacement center inside the campus of Omdurman Islamic University in El Fasher, on Friday night, killing at least 60 civilians – including 17 children (three infants) and 22 women – and wounding 57 others.
Most victims suffered severe burns or shrapnel wounds. Witnesses said the attack began with drone strikes that collapsed shelters and was followed by incendiary munitions that sparked fires across the compound.
In a statement Saturday, the El Fasher Resistance Committee accused the RSF of executing a coordinated series of strikes on Dar Al-Arqam from Friday into Sunday morning. The committee said the attacks deliberately targeted shelters housing displaced families – mainly women, children and the elderly – killing and injuring scores.
Many victims, it added, were burned alive inside metal caravans used as makeshift homes, while others remained trapped beneath collapsed structures as fires raged through the site. The group described conditions in the city as “beyond catastrophic,” accusing the RSF of committing acts of genocide against civilians “under the silent gaze of the world.”
“An RSF drone bombed the Dar Al-Arqam shelter, killing dozens of unarmed civilians yesterday (Friday) and this morning (Saturday) at the center and at Omdurman Islamic University. Bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble, while others were burned alive inside the shelter’s caravans. Children, women, and the elderly were killed in cold blood, many of them completely incinerated by the strategic drone in a deliberate act of revenge.”
“There are also hundreds of dead and wounded inside residential neighborhoods due to continued bombardment and drone attacks. The situation has surpassed the limits of catastrophe and genocide inside the city, while the world remains silent.”
“Everyone here is dying—by bombardment, hunger, or disease. Every day, the city loses more than thirty innocent lives, counted as martyrs who await God’s justice. God is with us, no matter what they do; the truth will always prevail,” the statement seen by Sudan War Monitor said.
The Dar Al-Arqam strike came less than a month after RSF drones hit Al-Safiya Mosque during dawn prayers in the Safiya neighborhood of El-Fasher, an attack that killed more than 75 worshippers on September 19. Both assaults take place amid the RSF’s two-year siege of El Fasher and its push to capture the 6th Infantry Division headquarters, the army’s last functioning garrison in Darfur.
The Sudan Doctors’ Network condemned the October 11 assault as “a full-fledged act of genocide,” accusing the RSF of using a scorched-earth strategy intended to depopulate El Fasher’s civilian districts. The network said international silence had emboldened the militia to continue what it described as the “systematic extermination of unarmed civilians.”
The El Fasher Resistance Committees Coordination confirmed the death toll at 60, saying “bodies were scattered across the area, some burned beyond recognition.” Local medics reported that most victims were displaced families who had sought refuge in the compound after earlier bombardments elsewhere in the city.
