Sudan: UN shows alarm over deadly drone strikes

UN Secretary-General spokesman António Guterres has condemned the recent wave of drone strikes in Sudan with dozens of deaths. “The United Nations is alarmed by ongoing deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians, including children, and disrupting basic services,” said spokesman Stéphane Dujarric in New York on Monday. According to UN figures, drones hit several locations in the capital Khartoum on Monday, including an area near the airport. The UN Emergency Relief Office OCHA cited reports that a civilian had been killed. The Sudanese civil society group Emergency Lawyers spoke of three children killed. She blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the attack. A further drone strike on Monday struck a bustling market in Abyei on the border with South Sudan. According to UN information, at least 19 people were killed there. Local representatives spoke according to media reports of more than 70 dead. At least 19 people, including ten children, were reportedly killed in drone strikes over the weekend in West Darfur, South Darfur and North Kordofan states. Other people were injured. Here, too, local sources sometimes cited higher casualties. The information could not be independently verified. Both warring parties are blamed for the attacks. Local authorities accuse the RSF of carrying out the attack in West Darfur. The RSF in turn accused the Sudanese army of shelling a market in southern Darfur. South Sudan’s government also blamed the Sudanese army for the strikes on the market in Abyei and appointed the Sudanese ambassador. At least 1,120 civilians died from drone strikes in total, according to the UN Human Rights Office OHCHR, at least 1,120 civilians in Sudan died from drone strikes in the first half of the year alone. This corresponds to 80 percent of all civilians killed, which the OHCHR was able to document in the time. The number of deaths is probably much higher. Fighting and interrupted cell phone connections make contact with people in many parts of the country difficult. The west of the country is largely under the control of the paramilitary militia RSF. In Sudan, there has been a war between the RSF and the army since April 2023. In the meantime three and a half years of the war, tens of thousands of people were killed and more than 14 million people displaced. The war has triggered one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world.