Sudan: drone strike on Nyala market kills dozens, MSF says; rights group puts death toll above 100
Médecins Sans Frontières said a Sudanese Armed Forces drone hit a busy market in the RSF-held city of Nyala on Monday evening, and that its supported hospital received 36 bodies and more than 150 wounded. A Sudanese rights group said more than 100 people were killed. Separately, a drone strike blamed on the RSF cut power across much of Khartoum.
Casualty figures differ between sources and cannot be independently confirmed.
A drone strike hit a busy market in Nyala, the capital of Sudan’s South Darfur state, at about 8pm local time (18:00 GMT) on Monday 26 October, killing dozens of people, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The medical charity said the drone was operated by the Sudanese Armed Forces and that a second strike hit a civilian neighbourhood.
MSF said the Nyala Teaching Hospital, which it supports, had received 36 bodies, 21 of them in civilian clothing, and that staff saw more than 150 wounded people. “Markets, homes, and key civilian infrastructure are not targets. All parties to the conflict must protect civilians,” said Dale Koninckx, MSF’s project coordinator in Nyala.
Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, said more than 100 people were killed and 113 injured, many of them women and children, The Associated Press reported. It blamed the army and called for an independent investigation. A medic at Nyala Hospital told AFP that 21 people were killed and more than 40 injured, Al Jazeera reported. A resident told AFP the market was frequented by armed men, particularly fighters of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The reports did not include a statement from the army on Monday’s strike.
Power cut in Khartoum
On Tuesday, a drone strike on the Al-Markhiyat transformer station in Omdurman left large parts of Khartoum without electricity for more than 12 hours, AP reported. An electricity company official blamed the RSF. The state electricity distributor apologised for “repeated and prolonged outages” without giving a cause.
Background
The war between the army and the RSF began in April 2023. The RSF controls Nyala, where it has declared a rival administration. The conflict has killed at least 59,000 people, according to the monitor ACLED, and about 34 million people need assistance, according to the UN, AP reported. See also: US, EU and 30 countries warn of famine in Sudan.
Sources
- Dozens of people killed and 150 injured in Sudanese Armed Forces' Nyala drone strike · Médecins Sans Frontières
- More than 100 people killed in Sudanese army drone attack on market, says Sudanese rights group · NBC News (The Associated Press)
- Drone strike in Sudan's Nyala kills at least 21, injures 40 · Al Jazeera
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