Paramilitary shelling kills over 30 in besieged Sudan city: activists

Paramilitary shelling on Sudan's besieged city of El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, killed more than 30 civilians and wounded dozens more, activists said on Monday.

The attack, which took place on Sunday, involved "heavy artillery shelling" and targeted the city's residential neighbourhoods, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.

Since April 2023, the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a brutal war.

El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, remains the last major city in the vast Darfur region that the paramilitary group has not conquered.

Last week, the RSF launched a renewed offensive on the city and two nearby displacement camps -- Zamzam and Abu Shouk -- killing over 400 and displacing some 400,000 people, according to the United Nations.

In a bloody ground offensive, the RSF took control of Zamzam camp -- where up to one million people were sheltering according to aid sources.

Following the army's recapture of the capital Khartoum last month, the RSF has intensified efforts to seize El-Fasher, raising fears of a devastating urban battle and a new wave of displacement.

The war in Sudan, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million and created what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The conflict has effectively divided the country in two with the army holding the centre, east and north while the RSF controls nearly all of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.