UN condemns 'horrifying toll' of drone attacks in Sudan

The United Nations said Friday drone attacks in Sudan had killed more than 300 people so far in October, accusing both sides of launching such attacks, often on civilian targets, AFP reported.

"The increasing use of drones, already accounting for the majority of conflict-related civilian deaths in Sudan this year, is deeply disturbing and is exacting a horrifying toll," UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

"Scores of civilians have been killed and vital infrastructure and services on which they depend eviscerated, driving further displacement and deepening the already severe humanitarian crisis."

Aid workers estimate that the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which erupted in April 2023, has killed more than 200,000 people.

They say the conflict has forced more than 13 million to flee their homes, creating the world's largest hunger and displacement crisis.

In the first three weeks of October, the UN Human Rights Office said it had documented at least 306 deaths and hundreds of injuries from drone strikes.

The attacks, attributed to both sides in the conflict, hit homes, markets, hospitals, displacement sites, as well as power stations and water sources, it added.

Civilian sites attacked

The office said that a strike on a transport truck Sunday had killed at least 139 people and wounded dozens more in Al-Dibab town in the southwestern RSF-controlled state of West Kordofan. On Tuesday, AFP gave the death toll as 80. The UN rights office also highlighted a "particularly disturbing trend" of drone attacks on displacement camps.

Between October 6 and 10, drone strikes on displacement shelters in Ghubeish and El Nuhud in West Kordofan, attributed to the SAF, killed at least 25 civilians, it said.

On October 9 in Abu Shendi in Blue Nile state, a suspected RSF drone struck just outside a displacement camp, near an informal gold mining site. A person involved in burying the victims told AFP that 26 women and four children had been killed. Suspected RSF drones hit the Bajaun gold mining area in Gadeer, South Kordofan this month, killing 42 civilians, the rights office said.

"Attacks on gold mining areas are tied to the war economy sustaining the conflict," it said. Markets are being hit with drones "with alarming regularity", it said, citing three recent strikes that reportedly killed 23 civilians. Turk called again for both sides to commit to a ceasefire.

"Broader peace efforts must squarely address the continued influx of arms that is fuelling the conflict and press for an end to the transfer of arms that are used in manifest disregard of the international humanitarian law obligations protecting civilians," he said.