Drone strikes on the strategic Sudanese city of El-Obeid killed 23 people and wounded at least 19 others, a rights group and witnesses said on Thursday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the city since war erupted in April 2023.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which monitors abuses in Sudan’s conflict, said the strikes began on Wednesday evening and continued into Thursday, hitting residential neighbourhoods, a funeral gathering and a truck carrying food supplies. It blamed the attacks on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF did not immediately comment.
Residents described scenes of destruction in the city, which has been partially encircled for months by RSF fighters.
“It is tragic. The roofs of houses collapsed on their occupants,” a resident of the Al-Matar neighbourhood told AFP. “When you look at some houses, you feel no one could have survived.”
According to the group, five civilians were killed and 12 wounded in initial strikes on Wednesday evening. A later attack hit mourners at a cemetery, killing four people and injuring seven.
Further strikes hit homes in the Al-Muwazafin and Al-Matar neighbourhoods on the eastern edge of the city, as well as areas near the headquarters of the Fifth Infantry Division in the city centre. Thirteen civilians were killed as they gathered near damaged houses, it said.
In a separate incident early on Thursday, a drone strike hit a truck carrying food supplies at the southern entrance to El-Obeid, killing the driver and destroying the cargo.
El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, sits on a key route linking RSF-held territory in Darfur with army-controlled areas in the east and has been a frequent flashpoint in the war.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF has intensified in Kordofan and Blue Nile regions in recent months, following major shifts in frontlines in Darfur.
The United Nations has said hundreds of civilians have been killed in drone strikes across Sudan this year, as the war increasingly relies on aerial attacks.
The wider conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, creating what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
and then