Port Sudan, Sudan — Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed 75 people in a drone strike that hit a mosque at a camp for displaced people in Darfur on Friday, an aid group operating at the site said. The strike came as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) pushed to oust the army from the Darfur region’s main city, El-Fasher.
According to the Emergency Response Room group at the Abu Shouk camp, a drone struck a mosque. “The bodies were retrieved from the rubble of the mosque,” the group said in a statement.
Sudan’s vicious civil war intensified as it entered its third year, with civilian deaths, including summary executions, and ethnic violence rising during the first six months of 2025, a United Nations report said on Friday.
“Sudan’s conflict is a forgotten one, and I hope that my office’s report puts the spotlight on this disastrous situation where atrocity crimes, including war crimes, are being committed,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report by his office.
People hold flags and placards during a rally called by Sudan’s Popular Front for Liberation and Justice, in Port Sudan, Sudan, April 24, 2025, to denounce the siege imposed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on El-Fasher city and express support for its residents. / Credit: AFP/Getty
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a brutal war between the regular armed forces and the paramilitary RSF.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and created what the United Nations has called one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The war has effectively split the country, with the army holding the north, east and center, while the RSF dominates parts of the south and nearly all of the western Darfur region.
Efforts to broker a ceasefire between warring parties have so far failed.
Friday’s report said that the rate of civilian deaths has increased, with 3,384 civilians dying in the first six months of 2025, a figure that represented 80% of the 4,238 civilian deaths in 2024.
An aerial view of Goz al-Haj Camp, where civilians fleeing the civil war in Sudan complain of mistreatment by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who they say displaced them as they struggle to survive the cold and a food crisis in Shendi city, north of Khartoum, Sudan, Dec. 25, 2024. / Credit: Osman Bakir/Anadolu/Getty
“Several trends remained consistent during the first half of 2025: a continued pervasiveness of sexual violence, indiscriminate attacks, and the widespread use of retaliatory violence against civilians, particularly on an ethnic basis, targeting individuals accused of ‘collaboration’ with opposing parties,” it said.
New trends include the use of drones, including in attacks on civilian sites and in the north and east of the country, which have up to now been largely spared by the war, it said.
“The increasing ethnicization of the conflict, which builds on longstanding discrimination and inequalities, poses grave risks for longer-term stability and social cohesion within the country,” rights chief Turk warned, urging countries to use their influence to stop the conflict.
“Many more lives will be lost without urgent action to protect civilians and without the rapid and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid,” he said.
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