At least 40 people were killed in Sudan when a drone struck a funeral gathering outside the army-held city of El-Obeid in North Kordofan, according to local officials and activists. The attack hit mourners in a tent in Al-Luweib village on Monday. Those on the ground blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the strike. The RSF has not commented. Many victims reportedly died before they could reach hospitals in El-Obeid, a strategic hub that links the capital, Khartoum, with the Darfur region.
“Mourners are not targets.”
Anonymous
What we know
Fighting has intensified across the Kordofan belt. About 20,000 people fled to El-Obeid last week after the RSF captured the town of Bara, roughly 30 kilometers north of the city. The town’s fall came as the army lost El-Fasher, its last major foothold in Darfur, where rights groups and residents have reported mass killings, sexual violence, abductions, and looting. The United Nations says summary executions by RSF fighters have also been reported in Bara.
International legal pressure is rising. The International Criminal Court has warned that reported atrocities could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The RSF’s leader has promised to investigate violations while rejecting claims of systematic, ethnically driven killings in El-Fasher. Humanitarian assessments paint a dire picture. A global network of food security experts confirmed that El-Fasher is experiencing famine after an 18-month siege by the RSF. The city of Kadugli in South Kordofan is also classified at the most catastrophic level of hunger. Kadugli, nearly 300 kilometers south of El-Obeid, has been surrounded and cut off from supplies.
What Happening
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate stop to the violence, warning that the crisis is rapidly worsening. Speaking on the sidelines of a summit in Doha, he said El-Fasher and surrounding areas have become an epicenter of suffering, hunger, displacement, and violence, and that conditions have deteriorated further since RSF forces entered the city. He urged the army and the RSF to return to talks and end what he described as a nightmare for civilians.
A Sudanese government source told AFP that authorities are considering a United States proposal for a truce. Washington and other partners have pushed for a ceasefire and a roadmap to end the conflict, but previous rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have failed, with both sides unwilling to compromise.
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Local groups provided initial details of Monday’s strike. The North Kordofan Resistance Committee said the blast hit a village about 15 kilometers east of El-Obeid. Mohamed Ismail, the state’s humanitarian aid commissioner, told the Sudan Tribune that drones belonging to the RSF attacked people at the funeral, killing 40 and injuring dozens. The UN had already warned last week that El-Obeid was struggling to absorb families fleeing Bara.
Since war broke out between the army and the RSF in April 2023, more than 150,000 people have been killed and about 12 million have been forced from their homes, according to UN figures, in what the organization describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
