Rights groups are warning of an increase in attacks by unmanned aircraft against civilians and infrastructure.
A wave of drone attacks across Sudan has killed more than 160 people in recent days, according to doctors and rights groups.
Drone attacks on the capital, Khartoum, killed three children on Monday, according to Emergency Lawyers, a group that monitors violence against civilians in Sudan’s civil war, while more than 160 were reported killed in western regions since Friday.
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These attacks have been attributed to paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and government troops, who have been fighting since 2023. The growing use of drones in recent months has led to a growing number of civilian casualties.
The deadliest recent attack took place Sunday evening near a market in the town of al-Dabba in the RSF-controlled southwestern state of West Kordofan. Residents and medical staff said a drone attacked a transport hub where villagers had gathered after a market day to return home, killing 80 people.
Another 47 injured people were transported to the nearby town of al-Mujlad, where 30 died from their injuries, a medical source said, according to the AFP news agency.
The self-proclaimed RSF administration, known as Tasis, and emergency lawyers accused the army of carrying out the attack.
Dam attacks
In eastern Sudan, a military source said on Sunday that air defenses intercepted several RSF drones targeting the Atbara and Setit dams, in Gadarif state, about 420 km east of Khartoum. RSF made no immediate comment.
Early Monday, a new drone attack hit the RSF stronghold in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. Medical and RSF sources indicated that 17 people, including seven RSF officers, were killed and 23 injured.
An RSF drone attack hit a gathering of displaced people in Sudan’s Blue Nile province on the border with Ethiopia on Friday, killing 41 people, emergency lawyers said.
The group condemned the attack, calling it a humanitarian tragedy.
The United Nations also condemned these deadly attacks.
“We are alarmed by the continuation of deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians, including children, and disrupting central services,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Monday.
At least 59,000 killed
Sudan’s war began in April 2023 when military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander-in-chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, argued over the plan to integrate the paramilitaries into the army.
In June this year, Hemedti was sentenced to death in absentia for war crimes.
However, the fighting, now in its fourth year, continues and has killed at least 59,000 people, according to conflict monitor ACLED. Humanitarian groups say the real death toll is likely higher.
The U.N. says about 13 million people have been forced from their homes, creating what aid groups call the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
In Sudan, 33.7 million people, including 17.3 million children, need emergency food assistance this year. According to the United Nations, around 825,000 children suffer from severe acute malnutrition.
The United States on Friday urged the U.N. Security Council to push for a humanitarian truce and extend the arms embargo on Sudan, but China and Russia opposed an expansion of the embargo.
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