A Sudanese army airstrike on El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State, which is under Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control, killed a number of civilians and wounded 10 others on Sunday morning, according to eyewitnesses.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj, several eyewitnesses said the airstrikes this morning destroyed dozens of homes in El Geneina. Local witnesses also reported that the aircraft targeted the civilian neighbourhoods of Al-Naseem, Al-Sham, and the Khartoum Jadeed neighbourhood, far from military targets.
Isahaq Tom, the uncle of a woman killed in the airstrike, said: “What did we do wrong as civilians to be targeted by military airplanes? We are just ordinary citizens, and they attacked us for no reason. The aircraft killed my niece and wounded ten others.”
Muhammad Adam, a resident of one of the neighbourhoods affected by the bombing, said: “I felt it after midnight after my mother alerted me that the planes had bombed us. One of the bombs fell in my children’s room. My child and my wife sustained minor injuries.”
Muhammad Adam continued: “Our neighbours were hurt more than us, as a bomb fell in their house. We found an older woman completely buried; her daughter died immediately, and her son was seriously injured. We transported the injured to the hospital to receive treatment.”
For his part, Hafez Taj al-Din, Deputy Head of the Executive Office of the Native Administration, said that the state had witnessed stability and the citizens planted crops, but the air attacks undermined this stability and caused fear and panic among the residents.
Hafez continued: “It has never happened that aircraft struck military targets; all of them were civilian targets, which caused great harm to citizens and destabilized people’s security. The aircraft targeted citizens and villages far from any military target.”
The native administration leader appealed to the United Nations and the international community to intervene to find a solution to protect civilians from airstrikes and attacks targeting innocent civilians in Darfur.
War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese regular army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The RSF has seized all areas of the western region of Darfur except for El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, which is controlled by the Sudanese army and its allies but currently besieged.
