El Fasher, October 16 (Darfur24)
Three people were killed and five others wounded in two separate shooting incidents on Tuesday in Kutum, about 136 km northwest of El Fasher in North Darfur, eyewitnesses and local sources said.
A medical source at Kutum Rural Hospital confirmed the facility received three bodies, one of whom was pronounced dead on arrival, and five injured individuals. Three of the wounded were reported to be in stable condition.
The victims were shot in various parts of their bodies, the source added, without providing further details.
Eyewitness Bahja Abdullah told Darfur 24 that armed men attacked a Starlink communications center in the Al-Salamah neighborhood in an apparent robbery attempt. The store owner, Youssef Ishaq Ali Mansour, resisted and was shot four times in the head, dying instantly.
She said residents gathered to transport the body to the hospital, but Rapid Support Forces (RSF) troops stationed in the nearby Qasr neighborhood opened fire on civilians, causing additional casualties.
Youssef Ezz El-Din, a relative of the victims, said the second shooting at the gathering led to the deaths of Mazen Mukhtar and Badriya Ishaq, and injured five others, including two children and a woman.
He added that the RSF took no action to pursue those responsible for the initial attack or hold its members accountable for the second incident. Instead, RSF personnel arrested several young men on charges of inciting protests against the force.
Kutum has seen a rise in killings and armed robberies in recent months, often carried out by armed groups allied with the RSF.
The RSF has controlled Kutum since 2023, after limited clashes with the Sudanese army, which later withdrew to the 6th Infantry Division headquarters in El Fasher.