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A drone strike caused massive explosions at a market in Sudan’s Darfur region near the border with Chad on Thursday, killing four people and wounding more than two dozen civilians, Doctors Without Borders said. The medical aid group said the attack hit the Adikong border market in West Darfur.
MSF said the drone targeted fuel reserves at the Adikong market. Gado Mahamadou, MSF’s head of mission in Chad, said 23 people were injured, including seven children and four women.
The strike marked the second fatal drone attack in Adikong in less than a month, MSF said. The report did not include figures for damage beyond the market area.
Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 after tensions between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army erupted into fighting in Khartoum and spread across the country. Darfur and Kordofan have become epicenters of the conflict, and drone attacks have been frequently reported in Kordofan, aid groups and analysts previously said.
While the Thursday strike has not been attributed in an official statement by Sudan’s military, two officials told The Associated Press that there were military operations in the area aimed at targeting the RSF. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The U.N. humanitarian office, OCHA, warned on Thursday that increasing drone strikes across Sudan “are exacting a growing toll on civilians.” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was appalled by the rising drone attacks, citing reports that more than 200 civilians have been killed by drones since March 4 in the Kordofan region and in White Nile state.
On Wednesday, another drone strike blamed on the RSF hit a secondary school and a health care center in southern Sudan in the White Nile province, killing at least 17 people, mostly schoolgirls.
MSF’s account of the Adikong attack adds to a pattern aid organizations say is increasingly dangerous for civilians and increasingly disruptive for humanitarian work across Sudan’s western regions.