Khartoum, July 2 : At least nine children were killed and 11 others injured in an air raid by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur State in western Sudan, a local resistance committee said.

"An RSF drone threw projectiles at the Al-Hijra Mosque in the Al-Tijaniya neighbourhood in El-Fasher, killing nine children and injuring 11 others," the resistance committee in El Fasher, a non-governmental group, said on Monday in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Sudan Tribune news portal reported that the targeted site contained a voluntary kitchen providing food to the displaced, Xinhua news agency reported.

The RSF has yet to respond to the report.

Since May 10, fierce clashes have been raging in El Fasher, the latest escalation of the larger conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces across the country since April 15, 2023.

The deadly clashes have so far claimed 16,650 lives, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update last month.

The UN International Organisation for Migration estimated in early June that at least 7.3 million people in Sudan are internally displaced in the current conflict.

/IANS