Drone strike kills 80 at Sudan market transport hub
Second strike on al-Dibab hit ten minutes after the first as commuters waited for rides home, drones now account for over 80 percent of civilian deaths in the war
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A man stands in a hole filled with drone components in El Obeid, Sudan, in March. There has been an escalation in the use of drones in the war. Photograph: Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
theguardian.com
A drone strike on a transport hub in the Sudanese town of al-Dibab killed around 80 people on Sunday evening, most of them commuters catching rides home after the market day. The strike hit twice, ten minutes apart, in West Kordofan state, one of the deadliest single attacks on civilians since the civil war began in April 2023.
Witness Ahmed Wadi said he helped bury 50 bodies, among them his own brother Mohamed. He shared his account over a satellite internet connection, circumventing the communications blackout across the region. A medical source, speaking anonymously for his safety, said 47 wounded were transported to the nearby town of al-Mujlad, where 30 died of their injuries. A second drone strike on al-Mujlad wounded four more.
The RSF-declared administration, Tasis, accused the Sudanese army of carrying out the attack — notable because all of West Kordofan is under RSF control, and the strike hit the RSF's own constituency. The army, for its part, said drone strikes on a busy livestock market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on Friday had killed RSF fighters; the RSF said the same strikes killed 30 civilians.
Drones now do the killing in Sudan at a scale that dwarfs every other weapon. Between January and April, drone strikes accounted for at least 880 civilian deaths — more than 80 percent of all conflict-related civilian deaths in the country. The war, which began as a power struggle between Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's armed forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's Rapid Support Forces, has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced many more, with foreign powers arming both sides.
Last week Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN's undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, told the security council the conflict was deteriorating with 'no breakthrough on the horizon'. The warring parties, she said, 'seem to believe that they can make greater gains on the battlefield and that continued external support will allow them to pursue their objectives by force'.
The 80 dead at al-Dibab were gathered at the place where people wait for rides back to their villages.