At least 54 people were killed in an attack on a crowded market in the Sudanese city of Omdurman, the Health Ministry said.

The attack was blamed on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that has been locked in a brutal power struggle with Sudanese troops since April 2023.

The Health Ministry said at least 158 people were injured in the shelling of the market in Omdurman, located in Sudan’s capital region. Other reports put the number of victims even higher.

Chris Lockyear, the secretary general of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), was inside al-Nao hospital in Omdurman as victims poured in.

“I can see the lives of men, women and children torn apart with injured people lying in every possible space in the emergency room,” he wrote late Saturday on X.

“Medics are doing what they can, but there are dozens and dozens of people with devastating injuries, the morgue is full of dead bodies.”

The fighting between Sudan’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the army, and his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the RSF, has forced more than 12 million people to leave their homes, the UN says.

The African country’s warring factions have been accused by Western powers and rights groups of committing widespread war crimes, including mass killings, sexual violence against women and girls, and targeted attacks on civilian sites such as hospitals and churches.

Al-Burhan’s army has recently made significant territorial gains in the greater Khartoum area, which includes Omdurman. However, there are still areas controlled by the RSF, especially to the west of the Omdurman.

|Reuters