Drone Strike on Sudan Market Kills 28

A drone attack on a busy market in central Sudan has claimed the lives of 28 people, a rights monitoring group reported on Monday, as the army and its paramilitary rivals continued exchanging aerial strikes in their battle for control of key territories.

The attack took place on Sunday in a paramilitary-controlled area in the northern part of Sudan’s Kordofan region, which has become the fiercest frontline in the three-year conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

According to the Emergency Lawyers, an organization monitoring violations in the conflict, multiple drones struck the al-Safiya market outside the town of Sodari. “The attack occurred while the market was crowded with civilians, including women, children, and the elderly,” the group said, noting that the reported death toll is preliminary. The perpetrators of the strike were not identified.

Sodari, located about 230 kilometres (132 miles) northwest of El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, sits at a crossroads of desert trade routes. The RSF has reportedly been attempting to encircle El-Obeid for several months.

Kordofan has seen a marked increase in deadly drone attacks as both sides vie for control over Sudan’s strategic east-west corridor, which connects the western RSF-held region of Darfur, through El-Obeid, to the army-controlled capital, Khartoum, and other parts of the country.

Remote towns and villages across the region have been repeatedly hit, resulting in dozens of civilian casualties at a time. Last Wednesday, two children were killed and a dozen others injured in a strike on a school, while another attack caused severe damage to a United Nations warehouse storing famine relief supplies.

After consolidating its hold over Darfur last year, the RSF has advanced eastward through Kordofan, a region rich in oil and gold, in an attempt to control Sudan’s central corridor.