A rights group says military drone strikes on a busy market in Nyala, South Darfur, killed more than 100 people and wounded 113. Nyala is the de facto capital of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Emergency Lawyers, a group that tracks violence in Sudan, said most of those killed were women and children. A medical network gave a far lower preliminary toll of 21, and none of the figures has been independently verified.

Conflicting counts

  • Emergency Lawyers: more than 100 dead and 113 wounded.
  • Sudan Doctors Network: a preliminary 21 dead and more than 40 wounded, with shelling causing most deaths. It said its statement was delayed by access and security constraints.
  • Doctors Without Borders (MSF): a hospital it supports in Nyala received 36 bodies in the hours after the strike, 21 of them in civilian clothing, and its teams saw more than 150 wounded in the emergency room. It said a second strike hit a civilian neighbourhood and that "markets, homes, and key civilian infrastructure are not targets."
  • Mohamed Didan, spokesperson for the Special Operations Forces fighting alongside the army, said on Facebook that more than 150 "militia recruits" were killed at the Dumaya camp west of Nyala in a "precise and targeted air strike." It is not clear whether that is the same site as the market.
  • Aid worker Mubarak Bekheit said many people remain missing and some bodies had not been recovered from homes. "Civilians are the ones paying the highest price," he said.

Who was at the market

Witnesses speaking anonymously to a news agency said the market is frequented by RSF fighters. One, a cigarette vendor, said hundreds of fighters gathered there that evening and a drone struck at about 8pm, killing dozens of fighters and women selling food. Another estimated that about 14 civilians died, most of them women selling tea and food.

Whether those killed were civilians or combatants is therefore disputed. The United Nations has reported that drone strikes are now the leading cause of civilian deaths in Sudan, though no document was cited.

What we do not yet know

  • Who carried out the strikes. The reports we reviewed do not say, and we found no response from the army or the RSF.
  • The real death toll and how many of the dead were civilians.
  • Whether the market strike and the strike on the Dumaya camp are connected.