7 killed as RSF fighters ambush village in Sudan

A notorious paramilitary group ambushed a village in south-central Sudan, looting and burning several houses, a medical group said Wednesday. At least seven people, including two children, were killed, it said.

Tuesday’s attack by the Rapid Support Forces on the village of al-Ghabshan al-Maramrah, an agricultural community in North Kordofan province, also wounded 13 others, said the Sudan Doctors Network, a group of medical professionals tracking the Sudanese civil war.

The group said RSF fighters looted properties, burned several houses as well as the village’s sole health care center and "stole the medical supplies stored there.”

The RSF did not respond to an Associated Press inquiry about the attack.

The attack on the Kordofan village came as the RSF attempted to seize control of the crucial, oil-rich region following a series of battlefield setbacks earlier this year in its war with the Sudanese government. The military kicked the RSF out of major cities in the first half of 2025, including Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman.

Last month, RSF fighters rampaged through the village of Shaq al-Num and the surrounding area in Kordofan, killing more than 450 civilians, including 35 children and two pregnant women, according to UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency.

Sudan plunged into chaos when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in April 2023 in Khartoum and elsewhere.

The fighting has turned into a full-fledged civil war that killed tens of thousands of people, displaced over 14 people out of their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine.

The devastating conflict has been marked by atrocities including mass killings and rape, which the International Criminal Court is investigating as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a joint statement Wednesday, the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Nations and the African Union expressed alarm over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan and urged the warring parties to lift restrictions on aid, particularly in Darfur and Kordofan, and keep key supply routes open through humanitarian pauses.

"Civilians continue to pay the highest price for this war,” the statement said, adding that "urgent action is needed by the conflict parties to protect civilians and allow and facilitate humanitarian access to those in need.”

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, meanwhile, said Tuesday it suspended its activities in the main hospital in RSF-controlled Central Darfur province in western Sudan following an armed attack on the facility.

The attack happened after two people, one of them dead from a gunshot wound, were brought to the MSF-supported hospital Saturday night. Armed relatives stormed into the facility and tensions escalated among those accompanying the casualties, who reportedly sustained their wounds in a looting incident in a nearby camp, it said.

"Suspending our activities and evacuating our teams is a decision no medical organization wants to make, but our staff cannot risk their lives while providing care,” Marwan Taher, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Darfur, said.

The group said its operations can’t be resumed until it receives "clear security guarantees to protect staff and patients.”

Associated Press