Airstrike on Sudan market causes ‘horrific massacre’ – rights group

According to local NGO Emergency Lawyers, attacks in North Darfur on Monday left dozens of civilians dead

More than 100 people have been killed and hundreds others injured in Sudan after warplanes targeted a marketplace in the war-torn African nation’s Darfur region, according to local rights groups.

The Al-Fashir Resistance Committee, an activist group, was cited by Reuters as saying that more than eight barrel bombs hit the market in the North Darfur town of Kabkabiya on Monday.

Emergency Lawyers, a human rights NGO based in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, called the attack a “horrific massacre,” claiming that over 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured, including children.

“This attack on civilians on market day is a flagrant violation of international law. We demand an immediate investigation into this crime,” the organization wrote on X.

The northeastern African state has been embroiled in a brutal civil war between the national Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since mid-April 2023, owing to disagreements over its planned transition to civilian rule.

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The conflict, which first broke out in the capital, has spread across the country, triggering what the UN calls the world’s largest displacement crisis. Late last month, the global body reported that vulnerable groups, including 4.7 million children under five and pregnant or breastfeeding women, are experiencing acute malnutrition.

Despite regional and international efforts, including peace talks led by the US and Saudi Arabia, clashes between the SAF and RSF, previously allies who toppled the country’s former leader in a 2019 coup, have escalated in recent weeks.

The Sudanese army has reportedly been targeting towns in North Darfur with airstrikes as it fights the RSF for control of the state capital, al-Fashir, which is said to be its last stronghold in the region. However, it has denied responsibility for the Kabkabiya market bombings.

Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of committing war crimes in their nearly 20-month-old power struggle.

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In October, local activists reported at least 124 deaths in a new wave of attacks, accusing paramilitary forces of carrying out massacres against civilians.

In a statement posted on X, Emergency Lawyers accused the RSF of indiscriminate shelling of the army-controlled city of Omdurman, just across the River Nile and part of Khartoum state.

The group said 14 people were killed when fighters from the RSF fired heavy artillery shells at a passenger bus on Tuesday. Another bomb fell on a house, killing six members of the same family, it stated. The Khartoum state government also reported that the attacks had left more than 65 people dead and dozens wounded.