Drone attack near southern Sudan market kills scores

A drone strike near a market in southern Sudan killed 80 people, mostly commuters catching trucks home, a medical source and a witness told AFP on Monday.

The strike in the town of Al-Dibab in West Kordofan state on Sunday evening left "50 bodies who I helped bury, one of them my own brother Mohamed", Ahmed Abakar Wadi told AFP, using a satellite internet connection to circumvent a communications blackout.

He said 47 others were transported to the nearest town, Al-Mujlad, where 30 of them died from injuries, a medical source told AFP.

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"A total of 80 people were killed in the drone strike on Al-Dibab, and another drone strike on Al-Mujlad injured four who are currently being treated," the medic said, requesting anonymity for his safety.

The attack is one of the deadliest single strikes since war broke out in April 2023 between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

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The RSF-declared administration, known as Tasis, accused the army of carrying out the strike. All of West Kordofan state is under RSF control.

Wadi said the drone struck twice, 10 minutes apart, "on a transport hub where people gather to travel back to their villages after the market day ends".

A separate drone strike near the capital's airport killed three children aged two to six, according to a medical source.

 "Four bodies arrived at the morgue -- three children, aged between two and six, and one man -- due to a drone strike this morning on a house in the Nasser Extension neighbourhood" just east of the airport, he said from the morgue.

There is no definite toll from the conflict as a whole, but aid workers estimate it has killed more than 200,000 people, besides creating the world's largest hunger and displacement crisis.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)