Khartoum – Sudanese authorities on Friday announced that at least 79 civilians, including 43 children, were killed and 38 others injured in drone strikes allegedly carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and an allied faction on civilian areas in the city of Kologi, South Kordofan State.
The state government condemned what it called a “heinous crime” perpetrated by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North led by Abdulaziz al-Hilu, in coordination with the RSF. According to its statement, four missiles fired from a drone hit a kindergarten, a hospital in Kadier, and crowded residential neighborhoods.
Local officials told Al Jazeera that the death toll later rose to 80, including 46 children, as the fighting intensified across Kordofan. The United Nations has warned of an “increasingly catastrophic” humanitarian situation in the region.
The South Kordofan government urged the international community and human rights organizations to condemn the attacks, classify the RSF as a terrorist organization, and hold its allies accountable for what it described as “inhuman crimes.”
The Sudanese Doctors’ Union also accused the RSF and allied forces of killing nine civilians and injuring seven others in separate drone assaults on civilian facilities in Kologi.
In a separate statement, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said the RSF deliberately targeted civilians, describing the incident as “a massacre designed to cause maximum casualties.” It alleged that a drone first bombed a kindergarten, killing and injuring many children, before striking again as residents rushed to rescue survivors. The attack continued, the ministry said, when RSF units bombed the local rural hospital treating the wounded.
The Foreign Ministry called the targeting of children and the injured “an unprecedented act of terror,” and accused the UN Security Council and international backers of the RSF of enabling the atrocities through “inaction and silence.” The statement warned that the international community’s failure to implement its own resolutions, including those calling for the lifting of sieges and halting attacks in El Fasher, amounted to complicity.
Neither the RSF nor its allied SPLM–North faction have publicly commented on the allegations. Both groups have previously claimed to avoid harming civilians since Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Thursday that at least 269 civilians have been killed by airstrikes, artillery fire, and field executions in North Kordofan since late October. “It is truly shocking to see history repeat itself,” Türk said, referring to atrocities reported in El Fasher. “We must not allow another tragedy of that scale.”
Civilians Held Amid Fighting
The Sudanese Doctors’ Network reported that RSF forces are detaining more than 100 families, including women and children, in appalling conditions in and around the oil-rich city of Babanusa in West Kordofan. Women have reportedly been assaulted and beaten on accusations that relatives belong to the Sudanese army.
The network warned that such treatment constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and deepens Sudan’s escalating humanitarian crisis.
Earlier this week, the RSF claimed control of Babanusa, one of the army’s last strongholds in West Kordofan, though the military denied the claim, saying its forces repelled the attack.
Growing Crisis
The Kordofan region has seen fierce clashes in recent weeks between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, displacing tens of thousands of civilians. Of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF controls all five in Darfur, except parts of northern North Darfur still under army control. The military retains most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.
The conflict, which began in April 2023 over disagreements about merging the RSF into the national army, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around 13 million — one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
By Al-Yurae / Anadolu / Al Jazeera
