ع
Sudan’s army has been accused of launching drone strikes that killed more than 200 people including dozens of mourners traveling to a funeral, the Sudan War Observatory reported. Sources told the monitoring group that a truck carrying around 200 people from north of Abyei was hit upon arrival in Al-Dabab in West Kordofan state on Sunday evening, killing 145, while five others died when a tent at the funeral gathering was also struck. The attacks left 150 people injured, according to the Sudan War Observatory.
Army drones also targeted a market in the town of Al-Mujlad in West Kordofan the same evening though the Sudan War Observatory said the exact death toll there was not yet known. In a separate strike on Monday in the disputed Abyei area, 73 people died when drones hit a market that a military source told the BBC served as a fuel supply site for the Rapid Support Forces. The military source confirmed that the army carried out the Abyei attack.
The incidents form part of an escalation in drone use since the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, Al Jazeera reported. United Nations data shows more than 1,100 people were killed by drone strikes across Sudan in the first half of 2026. A rights groups assessment cited by Al Jazeera found that drones accounted for at least 880 civilian deaths between January and April 2026, more than 80 percent of all conflict-related civilian fatalities in that period.
Resident Ahmed Abakar Wadi told AFP he helped bury 50 bodies at the Al-Dibab scene including that of his brother. “The drone struck once, and then came back 10 minutes later and struck again,” Wadi said according to AFP. A medical source told AFP on condition of anonymity that 30 of 47 wounded people transferred to Al-Mujlad later died of their injuries.
The RSF’s self-declared administration known as Tasis and the rights group Emergency Lawyers accused the army of carrying out the Al-Dibab strike, The Guardian reported. All of West Kordofan state is under Rapid Support Forces control, according to accounts relayed by The New Arab. A separate Monday drone strike in Khartoum killed three children, Emergency Lawyers told Al Jazeera.
United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric condemned the continued deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians including children and disrupting essential services. Dujarric noted that 20 million people face acute hunger with rising risk of famine in parts of Darfur and Greater Kordofan, according to a UN statement. Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, has urged external actors to stop fuelling the violence and drone usage, The National reported.
