Sudanese doctor executed by paramilitary RSF in El-Fasher, medics say

KHARTOUM, Sudan/ISTANBUL

A Sudanese physician was executed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El-Fasher city in western Sudan, a local medical group said Wednesday, accusing the rebel group of carrying out a systematic killing campaign against health and humanitarian workers.

RSF militants detained doctor Adam Ibrahim Ismail in El-Fasher before “field-executing” him, the Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement, calling the killing “a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law.”

The group called on the UN and the World Health Organization (WHO) to intervene to protect health workers and hold those responsible accountable.

Separately, the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate said 12 journalists managed to flee El-Fasher to the town of Tawila, while five others remain in RSF custody, and contact has been lost with seven more, including two women.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF on the report.

The RSF captured El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and a strategic city in the region, on Oct. 26 and carried out massacres of civilians, according to local and international organizations, triggering warnings that the takeover could cement a geographic partition of the war-torn country.

Out of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF currently controls all five states of the Darfur region in the west, except some northern areas in North Darfur that remain under army control. The Sudanese army rules over most of the remaining 13 states in the south, north, east, and central regions, including the capital, Khartoum.