Drone-fired missiles have hit a market in central Sudan’s Kordofan region, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens of others, a rights group says.
Emergency Lawyers, a group tracking violence against civilians, said in a statement on Monday that drones bombed the al-Safiya market in the town of Sodari in North Kordofan state.
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The bombing on Sunday occurred when the market was packed with people, “exacerbating the humanitarian tragedy”, it said, adding that the number of casualties is likely to rise.
“The attack occurred when the market was bustling with civilians, including women, children and the elderly,” the group said.
“The repeated use of drones to target populated areas shows a grave disregard for civilian lives and signals an escalation that threatens what remains of daily life in the province. Therefore, we demand an immediate halt to drone attacks by both sides of the conflict,” the statement said.
The area is currently the fiercest front line in the three-year-old war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Sodari, a remote town where desert trade routes cross, is 230km (132 miles) northwest of el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, which the RSF has been trying to encircle for months.
The Kordofan region has seen a surge in deadly drone attacks as both sides fight over the country’s vital east-west axis, which links the western RSF-held Darfur region, through el-Obeid, to the army-controlled capital, Khartoum, and the rest of Sudan.
After consolidating its hold on Darfur last year, the RSF has pushed east through the oil- and gold-rich Kordofan in an attempt to seize Sudan’s central corridor.
Emergency Lawyers said on X that the drones targeting the market on Sunday belonged to the army.
Two military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media, told The Associated Press news agency that the army does not target civilian infrastructure and denied the attack.
A week ago, a drone close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan hit a vehicle carrying displaced families, killing at least 24 people, including eight children. A day before the attack, a World Food Programme aid convoy was also hit by drones.
Violence ‘shocking in scale and brutality’
Fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese military erupted into a full-blown war across the country in April 2023. So far, at least 40,000 people have been killed and 12 million displaced, according to the World Health Organization.
Aid groups say the true death toll could be many times higher, as the fighting in vast and remote areas impedes access.
The United Nations human rights chief recently said that the Kordofan region remains “volatile and a focus of hostilities” as the warring parties vie for control of strategic areas.
Both sides have been accused of atrocities.
The UN Human Rights Office issued a report on Friday saying that more than 6,000 people were killed over three days when the RSF unleashed “a wave of intense violence… shocking in its scale and brutality” in Darfur in late October.
The RSF’s offensive to capture the city of el-Fasher, which used to be a military stronghold, in late October included widespread atrocities that amounted to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, according to the UN.
The war has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis. It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the centre, north and east, while the RSF controls the west and, with its allies, parts of the south.
