Sudan rescuers say airstrike killed 23 in Khartoum market

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: A Sudanese network of volunteer rescuers said on Sunday the military carried out an airstrike a day earlier on a marketplace in Khartoum, leaving 23 people dead.

The market is near one of the main camps in the Sudanese capital, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting the military as part of a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people.

“Twenty-three people were confirmed dead and more than 40 others wounded” and taken to hospital after “military air strikes on Saturday afternoon on the main market” in southern Khartoum, the youth-led Emergency Response Rooms said in a post on Facebook.

Fierce fighting has raged since Friday around Khartoum, much of which is controlled by the RSF, with the military pounding the centre and south of the city from the air.

The military is advancing towards Khartoum from nearby Omdurman, where clashes erupted on Saturday, eyewitnesses said.

Since April 2023, when war broke out between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the paramilitaries had largely pushed the army out of Khartoum.

The World Health Organization says at least 20,000 people have been killed in the civil war, but some estimates put the toll much higher at up to 150,000.

The war has also created the world´s largest displacement crisis, the UN says.

More than 10 million people, around a fifth of Sudan´s population, have been forced from their homes, according to UN figures.