Drone Strikes on Nyala Market Kill More Than 100, Rights Group Says

Drone strikes on a busy market in Nyala killed more than 100 people on Monday, according to Emergency Lawyers, a rights group that tracks violence in Sudan. The group also reported 113 people wounded and said most of the victims were women and children.

Nyala is the main city in South Darfur, in western Sudan, and in practice serves as the headquarters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that has been fighting Sudan's army since April 2023. The conflict began as a power struggle between the two forces. Witnesses told reporters that the market was frequented by paramilitary fighters.

Emergency Lawyers blamed the Sudanese military for the drone strike.

The Sudan Doctors Network gave a lower, preliminary toll of 21 dead and more than 40 wounded, and said shelling caused most of the deaths. Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said a second strike hit a civilian neighbourhood after the market attack. It also said a hospital it supports in Nyala received 36 bodies in the hours after the strike.

Separately, Mohamed Didan, a spokesperson for the Special Operations Forces, which fight alongside the army, claimed that more than 150 militia recruits were killed at the Dumaya camp, west of Nyala, in what he described as a precise and targeted air strike.

The Nyala attack comes amid a long pattern of violence in Darfur, the western region where the conflict has been especially destructive. In February, the United Nations reported that the RSF had carried out ethnically targeted killings, widespread sexual violence and enforced disappearances. Earlier this year, the UN and aid groups also reported mass-casualty attacks on displacement camps and shelters in the region.

Casualty counts in Sudan are often disputed and revised as bodies are recovered and records are compiled.