Drone strikes kill over 160 civilians in Sudan, 80 near Al-Dibab market

Drone strikes across Sudan have killed more than 160 civilians in the past week, including three children in Khartoum on Monday, according to the monitoring group Emergency Lawyers. The deadliest hit was near Al‑Dibab market in West Kordofan, where a drone attack on a transport hub after market day left 80 dead and dozens more wounded. The army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) trade blame for the attacks, which have hit towns from Nyala in South Darfur to displaced‑person camps on the Blue Nile border.

The violence follows four years of fighting that began in April 2023 when Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al‑Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, fell out over plans to merge the militia into the regular forces. Since then, both sides have increasingly used armed drones, a tactic that has escalated civilian casualties. In June, a court sentenced Hemedti to death in absentia for war crimes, but the conflict has persisted, leaving at least 59,000 people dead according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, with aid agencies warning the true toll is higher.

Emergency Lawyers reported that after the Al‑Dibab strike, 47 injured people were taken to Al‑Mujlad, where 30 later died. On Sunday, a military source said Sudanese air defences intercepted several RSF drones targeting the Atbara and Setit dams in Gadaref state, though the RSF offered no comment. The same day, an RSF‑controlled area in Nyala saw a drone hit that killed 17 people, including seven RSF officers, and wounded 23. Earlier, an RSF‑launched drone struck a gathering of displaced persons in the Blue Nile province, killing 41. The United Nations condemned the attacks, with spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric saying the strikes “are killing civilians, including children, and disrupting central services.”

The attacks come as the country faces the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with about 13 million people displaced and 33.7 million, including 17.3 million children, in urgent need of food aid. UN officials are urging both sides to halt drone use and allow humanitarian corridors, but no ceasefire has been announced. If the aerial campaign continues, civilian death tolls could rise sharply, further straining already overstretched aid operations and deepening the risk of regional instability.