A Sudanese military airstrike on a market in a town in North Darfur killed more than 100 people and wounded hundreds on Monday, according to a pro-democracy lawyers’ group, which reported the attack on Tuesday.
“The airstrike took place on the town’s weekly market day, where residents from various nearby villages had gathered to shop, resulting in the death of more than 100 people and injury of hundreds, including women and children,” said the Emergency Lawyers, who have been documenting human rights abuses during the 20-month war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The airstrike targeted the town of Kabkabiya, located about 180 kilometres (112 miles) west of the state capital, El-Fasher, which has been under siege by the RSF since May.
The lawyers strongly condemned “the horrendous massacres committed by army air strikes” in Kabkabiya.
In a separate incident, a drone that had crashed in central Sudan’s North Kordofan on November 26 exploded on Monday evening, killing six people, including children, and injuring three others seriously, the lawyers reported.
In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, a series of “indiscriminate airstrikes” also targeted three neighbourhoods with barrel bombs, they added.
These attacks are part of “an ongoing escalation campaign, contradicting claims that the air strikes target only military objectives as the raids are deliberately concentrated on densely populated residential areas,” the lawyers said in a statement.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of targeting civilians and deliberately bombing residential areas.
Tens of thousands have been killed in the war, and more than 11 million have been displaced, creating what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement crisis.
