Overnight drone strikes on the central Sudanese city of el-Obeid on Thursday have killed at least 23 people, according to officials and local rights group Emergency Lawyers.
Emergency Lawyers said on social media that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched overnight airstrikes across the key hub in the southern Kordofan region, killing 23 people and wounding 19.
Health officials at el-Obeid Hospital said 15 civilians were killed and more than 10 were injured in the attack. The strikes hit residential areas, a funeral gathering, a truck carrying food supplies, and areas near army positions.
The RSF did not immediately claim responsibility for the attacks.
A drone strike that targeted the main market in the paramilitary-controlled town of Abu Zeima in the North Kordofan state last week had killed at least 11 people and wounded several others. Neither the RSF nor the Sudanese military government has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The United Nations had reported in May that at least 880 civilians were killed in drone strikes across the nation between January and April.
Fighting has intensified in recent months in the Kordofan region, along with the Blue Nile state near the Ethiopian border, especially after the RSF seized el-Fasher in October last year. El-Fasher was the Sudanese army’s last major stronghold in western Darfur.
Kordofan has been a central battleground in the ongoing civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces. It links RSF strongholds in Darfur to army-controlled areas in eastern Sudan. It has been partially surrounded by the RSF for months and continue to be fiercely contested.
The conflict, which is now enetering its fourth year, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced roughly 13 million civilians, and left 28 million with acute hunger. UN has described the displacement and hunger in the country as the current worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
