Deadly drone strikes in Sudan kill scores in West Kordofan and Khartoum

At least 80 people were killed in a drone strike near a market in al-Dibab, in Sudan's West Kordofan state, according to a medical source and a witness. A separate drone attack in the capital, Khartoum, killed four people, including three children, on the same day. The attacks add to a sharp escalation in drone warfare in a conflict that has already devastated large parts of the country.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The strike in al-Dibab took place on Sunday evening, near a transport hub where people were gathering to travel home after market day, a witness said. The witness said the drone struck twice, about 10 minutes apart, and described bodies being buried after the attack. A medical source said 47 injured people were taken to the nearest town, al-Mujlad, and that 30 of them later died from their wounds.

The same source said another drone strike in al-Mujlad injured four people who were being treated. In Khartoum, a medical source said four bodies arrived at the morgue after a drone strike on a house in the Nasser Extension neighbourhood, just east of the airport. The dead included three children aged between two and six, along with one man.

The separate attack in the capital underlines how the conflict continues to affect both frontline areas and urban centres, despite repeated shifts in control and front lines since the war began in April 2023. The West Kordofan strike is being described as one of the deadliest single attacks since the war erupted between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The RSF-declared administration, known as Tasis, accused the army of carrying out the strike.

Sponsored

West Kordofan is under RSF control, which makes the accusation politically significant even though independent verification of responsibility was not immediately available in the supplied reports. The attacks also come amid a wider pattern in which drones have become a major weapon in the war. That wider pattern has had severe civilian consequences.

One of the supplied reports said drone strikes accounted for at least 880 civilian deaths between January and April, more than 80% of all conflict-related civilian deaths in Sudan during that period. The same report said aid workers estimate the war has killed more than 200,000 people overall and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crisis. Those figures are not a full war toll, but they indicate the scale of the humanitarian emergency surrounding the latest strikes.

The conflict began in April 2023 after a power struggle between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, erupted into fighting in Khartoum. Since then, the war has spread across multiple regions and has repeatedly disrupted civilian life, markets and transport routes. The latest attack in al-Dibab is notable because it hit a place where commuters were gathering after a market day, rather than a clearly military target.

The reports also point to a communications blackout in the area, with one witness using a satellite internet connection to speak about the attack. That detail suggests how difficult it remains to independently confirm casualty figures and responsibility in real time. It also shows the extent to which civilians in conflict zones are relying on improvised means to report what is happening around them.