63 children killed in attacks on Sudan kindergarten and hospital, WHO says

More than 100 people including 63 children were killed in attacks on a kindergarten and hospital in Sudan, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The attacks on 4 December began with repeated strikes on the kindergarten in South Kordofan state.

It continued even as parents and caretakers rushed to the wounded in a nearby hospital, WHO added.

It comes as Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said today it had taken control of the strategic Heglig oilfield in the South Kordofan province, two and a half years into the country's civil war.

WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X: "Repeated strikes in Sudan's South Kordofan state hit a kindergarten and, at least three times, the nearby Kalogi Rural Hospital, killing 114 people, including 63 children, and injuring 35 people, according to WHO's Attacks on Health Care monitoring system.

"Survivors from the 4 December attacks have been moved to Abu Jebaiha, in South Kordofan, for treatment, and urgent calls are being made for blood donations and other medical support.

"Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital."

Heglig, lying along Sudan's south border, houses the main processing facility for South Sudanese oil, which makes up much of the revenue for South Sudan's government.

Government forces and workers at the oil field withdrew from the area on Sunday to avoid clashes that could have damaged oil facilities, government sources told the news agency Reuters.

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As oil is transported through the Greater Nile pipeline system to Port Sudan on the Red Sea for export, it makes the Heglig site essential for Sudan's hard-currency earnings - and for South Sudan.

The WHO added that a massacre also occurred in October in the city of al-Fashir.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks, which it says were carried out by the Rapid Support Forces using drones.

The WHO said a total of 114 people, including 63 children, were killed in the attacks, with heavy weapons used. 35 were also wounded.

The toll combines casualties from the kindergarten strikes, the transfer of patients to the adjacent rural hospital and attacks at the facility itself.

The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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