Rights group says paramilitary drone strike in Sudan killed 41 near Ethiopian border

A rights group has accused Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of carrying out a drone strike that killed 41 people near the border with Ethiopia on Friday. The Abu Shandi area in Sudan's Blue Nile province was the target of the attack, according to the Emergency Lawyers, which tracks the war in the northeastern African nation.

Among the casualties were eight children and numerous women, as reported by the rights group. The RSF declined to comment when contacted for a statement. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expressed deep dismay over the reported strike, emphasizing the urgent need for accountability for what it deemed a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.

Denise Brown, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, lamented the ongoing suffering of Sudan's people amidst the ongoing conflict. Sudan's civil war, which began in April 2023 following a military coup and subsequent clashes with the RSF in the capital, Khartoum, has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives, according to the Conflict Information Initiative, though humanitarian groups posit a higher toll.

The war has displaced over 12.4 million people, making it the world's largest humanitarian crisis, according to U.N. figures. Thirty-three million individuals, including seventeen million children, require immediate assistance in Sudan, and an estimated eight hundred twenty-five thousand children face severe acute malnutrition.