Cold-blooded murder of 1,500 patients and doctors by RSF in Sudan's Darfur

New Delhi: The killing of over 1,500 patients and medical staff inside a maternity hospital in El-Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s Western Darfur region has been described as “genocide” by medical groups and researchers.

Members of this militia captured the city of El-Fasher a few days ago and targeted its hospital, killing almost all patients and staff members. The RSF, which has been fighting Sudan’s military for control of the country, has killed thousands in the past three days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that patients, doctors, and paramedical staff were killed inside the hospital.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “appalled and deeply shocked” at the killing of patients at the Saudi Maternity Hospital. He said they were killed in cold blood and that everyone found inside the hospital was targeted.

Fighting has been raging between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF since April 2023, when a power struggle within the military regime broke out into open conflict in the capital, Khartoum, and quickly spread across the country.

Sudan’s army controls most of the country’s north and east.

Security experts had also been warning that an RSF takeover of El-Fasher would likely mirror its capture of Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, in 2023. The group killed as many as 15,000 civilians then, mostly from non-Arab groups.

The killings and atrocities committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan have been described by the UN and human rights organizations as among the worst humanitarian and ethnic cleansing campaigns in recent history.