Paramilitary attack kills at least 14 in central Sudan, group says

CAIRO (AP) — An attack by Sudanese paramilitaries and their allied rebels in the central region of Kordofan killed at least 14 people, including five children and two women, a medical group said Sunday, in the latest deadly assault of the Sudan war.

The Rapid Support Forces and their allies in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North launched a major offensive on Saturday on Dilling, the capital of South Kordofan province. The military, which recently broke the RSF siege on the city, said it fended off the attack.

The Sudan Doctors Network, a group tracking the war, said the RSF and their allies shelled residential areas in the city amid dire humanitarian conditions. It said the hourslong attack wounded at least 23 others, including seven more children in addition to those killed.

Dilling experienced faminelike conditions after more than two years of siege under the RSF during which the paramilitaries cut off supplies and frequently bombed the area. The military broke the siege earlier this year.

The doctors group warned of a possible “catastrophic scenario” developing like the one in the Darfur city of el-Fasher. The RSF invaded that area in October in an attack that U.N.-commissioned experts said bore “hallmarks of genocide.”

More than 6,000 people were killed over three days in el-Fasher when the RSF unleashed “a wave of intense violence … shocking in its scale and brutality,” according to a report from the U.N. Human Rights Office.

Sudan slid into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in Khartoumand.

The war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to U.N. figures, but aid groups say that the true number could be many times higher.

The fighting has recently centered in Darfur and the Kordofan region where deadly attacks, mostly by drones, have been reported daily. More than 500 civilians were killed in drone strikes this year as of mid-March, the U.N. Human Rights Office said.

The war has been marked by atrocities including mass killings, gang rape and other crimes, that have been being investigated by the International Criminal Court as potential war crimes and crimes against humanity.