Dozens of people were killed when Sudan's Rapid Support Forces struck a mosque at a displaced persons camp in Darfur, turning a place of worship into the latest mass-casualty scene in a war that has become increasingly brutal. Aid and medical workers said the attack hit Abu Shouk camp outside El Fasher, a strategic city in North Darfur.
The DW report says a local volunteer network, the Emergency Response Room, put the death toll at 75, while the Sudan Doctors Network said 43 worshippers were killed. The discrepancy shows how difficult it remains to confirm numbers in an active war zone, but both counts point to a very large civilian toll. The strike came as the RSF continued trying to push Sudanese army forces out of El Fasher, one of the war's most important fronts.
The broader conflict has now dragged into its third year. The United Nations human rights office warned in a report released Friday that civilian deaths, executions and ethnic violence have increased sharply this year. The report said 3,384 civilians were killed in the first half of 2025 alone, and described continuing sexual violence, indiscriminate attacks and retaliation against civilians on ethnic grounds.
The report's timing makes the Darfur strike more than a local battlefield event. It fits a pattern of repeated attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure that international monitors say are defining the war. Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said the situation deserved much more attention because atrocity crimes, including war crimes, are being committed.
Sudan's war began in April 2023 and has split the country between army-held regions and areas controlled by the RSF. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced. Ceasefire efforts have failed so far, despite a recent appeal from the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt for a three-month humanitarian truce. The mosque strike shows just how far the conflict remains from any real de-escalation.
The mosque attack is especially devastating because it struck people gathered for prayer in a displacement camp, not a military site. That detail aligns with the UN's warning that civilians are bearing the main burden of the war, and it helps explain why aid groups and medical networks reacted so sharply to the news. Places that should provide protection are instead becoming attack sites.
El Fasher remains one of the war's most contested and symbolic battlegrounds. The RSF has been trying to push further into the city, while the army and allied forces attempt to hold it. In that setting, any high-casualty attack on a camp or mosque carries military, political and humanitarian meaning at once, because it can signal both battlefield momentum and the erosion of civilian space.
The UN report also matters because it puts the Darfur strike inside a broader record of rising civilian death in 2025. A 3,384-death toll in the first half of the year suggests the war is becoming deadlier even before counting every new incident. In that sense, the mosque attack is not just another tragedy; it is evidence of a worsening pattern.
