KHARTOUM: A drone attack on a crowded market in central Sudan killed at least 28 people, a rights group said on Monday, as the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated aerial strikes in their ongoing war.
The strike hit the al-Safiya market outside the town of Sodari in North Kordofan on Sunday. The area remains under RSF control and lies on one of the fiercest frontlines in the three-year conflict.
Emergency Lawyers, a group that documents abuses in the war, reported that several drones struck the busy market. The group said the attack occurred while civilians, including women, children and elderly people, were shopping. It described the death toll as preliminary and did not identify the party responsible.
Sodari sits about 230 kilometres northwest of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan. The RSF has been trying to encircle El-Obeid for months as part of its campaign to control the region.
Kordofan has witnessed a sharp rise in deadly drone attacks as both sides battle for the country’s key east-west corridor. The route links the western Darfur region, largely held by the RSF, with El-Obeid and the army-controlled capital, Khartoum.
Recent strikes have killed dozens of civilians in remote towns and villages. Last week, one attack killed two children and wounded around a dozen people at a school. Another strike damaged a United Nations warehouse storing famine relief supplies.
After tightening its grip on Darfur last year, the RSF advanced eastward through oil- and gold-rich Kordofan in an effort to seize Sudan’s central corridor.
Since April 2023, the conflict between the army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands and displaced about 11 million people. The war has triggered what aid agencies describe as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis.
The fighting has effectively divided Sudan. The army controls the centre, north and east, while the RSF holds the west and parts of the south with allied forces.