An unmanned aerial vehicle targeted a crowded marketplace, killing at least eleven people and injuring dozens of others yesterday Saturday in Kordofan (central), one of the theaters of the fiercest fighting in Sudan’s war, a human rights advocacy group said.
The raid targeted the central market of Abu Zayema, a town captured by the Rapid Support Forces (DSS) paramilitaries in North Kordofan state, according to Emergency Lawyers, an NGOwhich documents the atrocities recorded in the war between the regular army and the DTOs, which erupted in April 2023.
The death toll could get even heavier, this source warned.
Emergency Lawyers did not attribute responsibility for the raid to either side. Neither has responded to this stage. According to the NGO, similar raids targeted villages and civilian vehicles in the area around the town in the hours leading up to the raid.
Two eyewitnesses told the French News Agency that a drone also struck a petrol station in Al Ubaid yesterday, the capital of North Kordofan state, which has been besieged by the DSSfor months. Four people were injured, according to a medical source.
These attacks were recorded at the end of a particularly bloody week in Kordofan: nearly 70 people were killed in various attacks in the area.
Raids using unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming increasingly widespread in the armed conflict in Africa’s third-largest country; the United Nations estimates that at least 880 civilians were killed in strikes launched by drones between January and April.
The war in Sudan, now in its fourth year, has claimed the lives of more than 200.000 people, according to some — rather conservative — estimates, and has caused what the UNcalls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
