Drones Kill Eight Civilians Traveling in Sudan’s North Kordofan

Eight civilians were killed and dozens more wounded when drones struck a group of travelers in Sudan’s North Kordofan state on Thursday, the independent Emergency Lawyers group said on Friday. The strikes hit the Um Sharu area of the Sowdari district, a remote rural zone northeast of the state capital El Obeid.

The group said a drone first targeted civilians on the move, then returned to strike people trying to evacuate the wounded. Hitting civilians and then their rescuers, it said, violates international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime.

01 What the lawyers documented

Emergency Lawyers is an independent Sudanese group that documents atrocities in the war. It said there was no military presence in the area and no fighting underway at the time, and called its toll of eight dead and dozens wounded preliminary.

Neither the army nor the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commented immediately on the incident, Anadolu Agency reported. The lawyers called for an independent investigation to establish who carried out the strikes.

02 Who flies the drones

Both sides do. The RSF, a paramilitary force that grew out of the Janjaweed militias, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the regular army, have made drone warfare a defining feature of the conflict, with civilians bearing the cost.

The United Nations says drones were the leading cause of civilian death in Sudan in the first four months of the year, accounting for 80% of such deaths, the Associated Press reported. The conflict monitor ACLED estimates at least 59,000 people have been killed since April 2023, a figure aid groups consider an undercount.

Sowdari has been struck before. In February, drones hit the Al-Safia market northeast of Soudari, killing 28 people, and in June a strike in the same locality killed three civilians traveling for medical care, according to Sudan Tribune. No side was firmly blamed in those cases either.

03 The fight for Kordofan

Sudan’s three Kordofan states bridge the army-held center of the country and RSF-held Darfur. In late July the army said it had taken full control of the Omdurman-El Obeid export road, held by the RSF since the war began, after capturing Umm Sayalla, Bara, Jabra al-Sheikh and Umm Girfa; Sudan Tribune cautioned that RSF fighters may still be able to cut sections of the road.

In late June, the US State Department formally warned that the RSF was massing near El Obeid and that “mass atrocities” could follow if the city fell. The UN Security Council voiced alarm over the buildup and demanded the RSF halt its assault, and US senators later put the number of civilians at risk in the city at around 500,000.

Drone attacks around El Obeid have since become near-daily events. The UN Population Fund recorded 21 drone-related incidents in North Kordofan in the first 19 days of July alone, and UN human rights chief Volker Türk said at least 45 civilians were killed in 15 drone strikes in June.

04 Famine in the background

The violence is unfolding over a hunger emergency. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network says famine conditions persisted earlier this year in Kadugli, the capital of neighboring South Kordofan, and possibly in the town of Dilling, with a credible risk of famine there through September.

Emergency-level hunger is expanding across Greater Kordofan, including among people displaced in and around El Obeid. Nationwide, the war has displaced about 13 million people, according to UN estimates.

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