More than 100 people were killed and 113 injured in a drone strike on a crowded market in Nyala, South Darfur, on Monday evening, according to rights groups and local officials cited by The Associated Press and Radio Tamazuj.Emergency Lawyers, a rights group tracking violence in Sudan, said in a statement on Tuesday that the strike hit Tanqong Market in the Dumaya neighbourhood of Nyala, a city controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The group blamed the Sudanese military for the attack and called for an independent investigation.Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said 36 bodies had arrived at its hospital in Nyala and that its emergency room had treated 150 injured people, AP reported.Dr Alaa al-Din Nugud, health minister in the RSF-aligned Tasis administration, told Radio Tamazuj that 102 civilians were killed and 113 injured. He said a medical team was sent to the scene immediately after the strike and that hospitals and health centres had been placed on alert.Adam Musa Obama, executive director of the Darfur Victims Organization, told Radio Tamazuj that eyewitnesses reported drones associated with the army had struck the market while civilians were shopping and eating breakfast. He said his organisation had documented 14 civilian deaths, including 12 women and six children, while witnesses reported 120 people killed or wounded.AP report cited Emergency Lawyers’ toll of more than 100 killed and 113 injured, while MSF reported receiving 36 bodies and seeing 150 injured at its hospital.Drone strikes have increasingly threatened civilians during Sudan’s war, with both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF using explosive-laden drones. Recent attacks have hit civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, markets and displacement camps. The United Nations has described drone strikes as the deadliest threat to civilians in the conflict.Sudan has been at war since April 2023, when fighting between the SAF and the RSF erupted in Khartoum and spread across the country. The conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with about 34 million people in need of assistance.
