More than 70 dead in Sudan strike
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 September 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sudan's military rulers have condemned a drone strike on a mosque in El Fasher city in Darfur that it says killed more than 70 people and blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the attack. The leaders said targeting the people who were performing dawn prayers is a crime that shames humanity. The RSF has been fighting to take over the city from the army, as the civil war in Sudan rages. Newshour hears from a doctor who went to the mosque in the aftermath of the attack.
Also in the programme: the Taliban removes books written by women from universities; and Estonia requests urgent NATO consultations over a violation of its airspace by Russian jets. (Photo: Image of El Fasher. Credit: Maxar Technologies)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsAhour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.2 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:14.1 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:15.4 | And we're going to begin today in Sudan with more evidence, if evidence were needed, |
| 0:19.8 | of the brutality of the civil war that's |
| 0:21.7 | been raging in the country for the past two and a half years. It is a war that pits two factions |
| 0:26.9 | of the military government that seized power in 2021 against each other, the army and its erstwhile |
| 0:33.6 | paramilitary allies, the RSF or rapid support forces. |
| 0:39.9 | They emerge from the western region of Darfur, |
| 0:42.9 | and it's there that the fighting right now is most intense, |
| 0:47.5 | in and around the besieged city of Elfasha, the army's last stronghold. |
| 0:53.1 | Today it was an attack from the air, a drone strike, on a mosque during morning prayers, |
| 0:54.9 | killing more than 70 people. |
| 0:57.6 | Ibrahim Hatter is a doctor in El Fasha. |
| 0:59.2 | He told me what happened. |
| 1:06.6 | There is a group of prayers who are performing the dawn prayers, Salat al-Faq. |
| 1:17.9 | And after they were completed the prayer, unfortunately, RASF has bombed them by drones. |
| 1:30.4 | Two missiles resulted in around 75 deaths and more than 20 cases of severely injured people. |
| 1:34.5 | And have you been down to the scene of the attack? |
| 1:36.0 | What did you find there? |
| 1:37.4 | It must have been horrific. Yes, I am eye witness for this attack because I visited the mosque and I saw the sand with my eyes. |
... |
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