Two drone strikes in Sudan, one at a market in Darfur and the other along a road in Kordofan, killed at least 28 civilians, adding to a toll from drone attacks that has already surpassed 500 victims this year.

Health workers in two cities 800 kilometres (500 miles) apart reported the latest deaths to AFP on Thursday via satellite internet connection to get around a communications blackout.

Repeated pleas from the United Nations to curtail drone attacks and protect civilians have fallen on deaf ears, as Sudan’s warring sides — the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — launch near-daily strikes, killing dozens at a time.

On Wednesday, one such strike hit a market in North Darfur state’s Saraf Omra town, killing “22 people, including an infant, and injuring 17 more”, one health worker at the local clinic told AFP.

“The drone hit a parked oil truck, which caught fire along with part of the market,” said Hamid Suleiman, a vendor at the market, which serves Saraf Omra and the surrounding towns in the remote Darfur area.

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Hundreds of kilometres to the east, far from the RSF’s strongholds in Darfur, another drone strike set fire to a truck travelling on a North Kordofan road in army territory.

“Six bodies arrived at the hospital yesterday, three of them charred, in addition to 10 wounded,” a medical source at the local hospital in El-Rahad told AFP, blaming the RSF for the attack.

The civilians were travelling between the army-controlled towns of El-Rahad and Um Rawaba.

Drones from both sides have repeatedly attacked Sudan’s central east-west highway, which runs through North Kordofan state capital El-Obeid and connects Darfur to the army-controlled east.

 Hundreds killed

Since April 2023, the war between the former allies has killed tens of thousands and uprooted some 11 million, creating the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis.

The UN says more than 500 civilians were killed in drone strikes between January and mid-March alone, particularly in the Kordofan region, currently the war’s fiercest battlefield.

The marked increase in drone warfare shows “the devastating impact of high-tech and relatively cheap weapons in populated areas”, the UN rights office said.

Last week, on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, a strike blamed on the army on the El-Daein Teaching Hospital in Darfur killed 70 people and injured 146.

Days before, another drone strike blamed on paramilitary forces killed 24 people on the Chadian town of Tine, as fears mount of spiralling regional spillover.

In an interview with France24, Chad’s information minister Gassim Cherif Mahamat said the army had been deployed along the entire 1,300 kilometre desert border, and that N’Djamena was planning a “proportionate response” in the event of a new attack.

The UN’s new special envoy for Sudan, Pekka Haavisto, began his first visit to the country this week “in support of peace”, he said.

The UN has repeatedly advocated for a truce and called on member states to refrain from foreign interference, to little result.

AFP

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