SRINAGAR: More than 100 people were killed and at least 113 injured in a drone strike on a crowded market in Nyala, South Darfur, on Monday evening, according to rights groups and local officials cited by The Associated Press (AP).
Emergency Lawyers, a rights group monitoring violence in Sudan, said on Tuesday that the strike hit Tanqong Market in the Dumaya neighbourhood of Nyala, which is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The group accused the Sudanese military of carrying out the attack and called for an independent investigation.
Dr Alaa al-Din Nugud, health minister in the RSF-aligned Tasis administration, told Radio Tamazuj that 102 civilians had been killed and 113 injured. He said a medical team was dispatched to the site immediately after the strike, with hospitals and health centres placed on alert.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that 36 bodies had been brought to its hospital in Nyala and that its emergency department had treated 150 injured people, according to AP.
Adam Musa Obama, executive director of the Darfur Victims Organization, told Radio Tamazuj that eyewitnesses said drones believed to be associated with the army struck the market as civilians shopped and ate breakfast.
He said his organisation had documented 14 civilian deaths, including 12 women and six children, while witnesses reported that 120 people had been killed or injured.
The differing casualty figures reported by the sources could not be reconciled from the available accounts.
Drone attacks have increasingly endangered civilians during Sudan’s conflict, with both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF using drones carrying explosives. Civilian facilities, including hospitals, schools, markets and displacement camps, have been among the targets of recent attacks. The United Nations has identified drone strikes as the deadliest threat to civilians in the conflict.
The war began in April 2023, when fighting between the SAF and the RSF erupted in Khartoum before spreading across Sudan. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions, triggering what the UN describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. About 34 million people need assistance, according to the figures cited in the report.
