At least 21 killed in airstrike on Sudanese market as civil war rages

An airstrike targeting civilian areas in southeastern Sudan has left more than 20 people dead and dozens of others wounded, authorities in the embattled Sennar state said, as civil war rages between the country’s army and a paramilitary militia.

At least 21 civilians were killed and 63 injured in the air raid on Sunday, Sennar’s acting governor Tawfiq Muhammad Ali said Monday, according to state-run news agency SUNA.

The aerial bombing, blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), was also confirmed by activist group Emergency Lawyers, which keeps track of human rights abuses and civilian casualties. The lawyers’ group said more than 30 people were killed in the RSF attack, which it said targeted a market and other civilian locations.

The RSF, which assumed near-total control of the city after capturing it in July, has yet to comment on the claims.

The activist group also attributed a similar airstrike in the nearby al-Souki town that killed four people to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

CNN has made attempts to reach the Sudanese army and the RSF for comment. Both the SAF and the RSF have frequently accused each other of killing civilians as war between them enters a second year.

The conflict has left at least 18,000 people dead and displaced more than 10 million others since April 2023. The fighting has also triggered “one of the worst humanitarian disasters” according to the United Nations, with over half of the country’s population facing acute hunger.

On Friday, a UN inquiry into the Sudanese conflict found that both warring factions have committed “an appalling range” of human rights abuses that “may amount to war crimes.”

Some of those violations by the SAF and RSF included “indiscriminate and direct attacks carried out through airstrikes and shelling against civilians, schools, hospitals, communication networks and vital water and electricity supplies,” according to the UN report.

The report called for the deployment of an independent force to protect civilians as well as a nationwide arms embargo.

Those recommendations were rejected by the Sudanese foreign ministry which denounced the UN report.