At least 28 civilians were killed when drones struck a busy market in central Sudan, a rights group said Monday, as fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified along one of the war’s most contested fronts, AFP reported.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that monitors violations during the conflict, said several drones hit the al-Safiya market on Sunday in an area controlled by the RSF near the town of Sodari in North Kordofan. The group said the market was crowded at the time of the attack and warned that the casualty figure could rise.
Sodari is located in a remote part of northern Kordofan, where desert trade routes converge. The town lies about 230 kilometres (132 miles) northwest of El-Obeid, the North Kordofan state capital, which the RSF has sought to encircle for months as part of its broader campaign in the region.
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Kordofan has become a focal point of the three-year-old war, with an increase in lethal drone attacks as both sides battle for control of Sudan’s main east-west corridor. The route connects the RSF-held western region of Darfur through El-Obeid to the army-controlled capital, Khartoum, and onward to other parts of the country.
Drone strikes and other aerial attacks have repeatedly hit towns and villages across vast areas of Sudan, often killing large numbers of civilians in single incidents. Both the army and the RSF have been blamed for attacks on populated areas far from active front lines.
Last Wednesday, a drone strike killed two children and wounded about a dozen people when it hit a school, according to earlier reports. Another attack that same day severely damaged a United Nations warehouse used to store famine relief supplies.
After consolidating its hold over Darfur last year, the RSF pushed east into oil- and gold-rich Kordofan in an effort to seize Sudan’s central corridor and expand its territorial control.
The conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around 11 million, triggering what humanitarian agencies describe as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis. The fighting has effectively divided Sudan, with the army controlling much of the center, north and east, while the RSF holds the west and, together with allied groups, parts of the south.