At least 56 people have been killed in Sudan after artillery shelling and air attacks on a vegetable market in Omdurman.

The Health Ministry said at least 158 people were also wounded in Saturday’s attack that was blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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Khalid al-Aleisir, minister of culture and government spokesperson, condemned the attack, saying the casualties included many women and children. He said the attack caused widespread destruction.

“This criminal act adds to the bloody record of this militia,” he said in a statement. “It constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”

Witnesses said the artillery shelling came from western Omdurman, where the RSF remains in control, and was supported by drones.

One resident further south in Omdurman told the AFP news agency that the RSF was firing on multiple streets at once, adding that “rockets and artillery shells are falling.”

“The shells fell in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why there are so many victims and wounded,” one survivor added.

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Staff at the nearby al-Nao Hospital said they have been overwhelmed by the number of casualties and that wounded were “still being brought to the hospital”. A hospital volunteer said they were in dire need of “shrouds, blood donors and stretchers to transport the wounded”.

In a separate incident in Khartoum, two civilians were killed and dozens wounded in an air attack on an RSF-controlled area, the local Emergency Response Room (ERR) was quoted by AFP as saying.

The ERR is one of hundreds of volunteer committees across Sudan coordinating emergency care.

War between the Sudanese army and RSF broke out in April 2023 over the integration of the two forces. It has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and plunged half of the population into hunger.

Saturday’s attack comes a day after RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo pledged to retake the capital from the army.

“We expelled them [from Khartoum] before, and we will expel them again,” he told troops in a rare video address.

Sudan’s army retook several bases in Khartoum last month, including its pre-war headquarters, pushing the RSF increasingly into the city’s outskirts.

Sudan’s capital has turned into a shell of its former self and tens of thousands have been killed across the country due to the violence.

Entire neighbourhoods have been emptied out and taken over by fighters and at least 3.6 million people have fled the capital, according to the United Nations.

At least 106,000 people are also estimated to be suffering from famine in Khartoum, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, with a further 3.2 million experiencing crisis levels of hunger.

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