At least five killed in Sudan’s South Kordofan in attack by rebel group

At least five people, including a child, have been killed and several others injured after a Sudanese rebel group attacked residential areas in the South Kordofan province, according to a medical organisation.

The Sudan Doctors Network, in a statement on Friday, accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) of carrying out the artillery attack in the town of Dilling.

The organisation said the heavy bombardment of civilian areas was a clear violation of international humanitarian law, resulting in civilian casualties and further worsening an already dire humanitarian situation.

“The Sudan Doctors Network calls on the international community to take immediate action to end these violations and exert meaningful pressure on the leadership of the SPLM-N (al-Hilu Faction) to cease attacks against civilians and residential areas,” it said.

The SPLM-N is a breakaway faction of the SPLM, the governing party of neighbouring South Sudan. Its leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, has aligned his fighters with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and joined ranks with the RSF-led parallel government in Sudan.

In a separate statement issued just hours earlier, the medical group said SPLM-N forces attacked the areas of Debi and Luweri near the town of Kauda on Thursday, killing more than 21 people, including women and children.

The network said those attacks specifically targeted the Otoro tribe, a minority group in the Nuba Mountains.

The killings follow clashes earlier this year driven by land disputes, adding another layer of ethnic friction to the country’s wider civil war between the Sudanese army and the RSF.