Sudanupdated 58m ago3 min read
Sudan’s Army Denies Drone Strike That Killed 153 at Amiet Common Market in Abyei
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Amiet Common Market drone strike killed scores of civilians Sudanese army denies involvement in Abyei attack
One story. Different accounts.
Drop Site News“Ahmed blamed the attack on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).”
“The Sudanese Armed Forces have absolutely no connection to this unfortunate incident,”
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Abyei market drone strike
Sudan’s army-aligned government denied that its armed forces carried out a deadly drone strike on Amiet Common Market in the disputed Abyei region, with Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying, “The Sudanese Armed Forces have absolutely no connection to this unfortunate incident.” South Sudanese officials blamed Sudan’s military for the attack, and Abyei officials initially reported at least 73 people killed and 19 wounded before raising the death toll to 153. The RSF-aligned Government of Peace sought an international investigation through the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, and Ammar Amoun Deldoum said, “We asked specifically to investigate the incident, collect evidence, analyse it, preserve it and determine the responsible parties as soon as possible.”
Drop Site News described the market attack as occurring at approximately noon local time on October 19, and it said the strikes killed at least 152 people and wounded 47. Drop Site News also reported that ACLED put the toll even higher, at between 150 and 220 people, while it said the strikes burned around 500 shops.
Competing casualty counts
UN condemnation followed the October 19 Abyei drone attacks, and the UN said the casualty toll was expected to rise as peacekeepers continued to verify the number of victims. Radio Tamazuj reported that Abyei officials said the dead were buried in two mass graves and that the victims included Sudanese, South Sudanese and foreign nationals. Drop Site News named trader Mubarak Musa Adam, a 44-year-old trader, and it said he was killed along with another cousin, Al-Fatih Daoud Adam, the Somali trader, and two of the trader’s brothers.
Murtada Ahmed, spokesperson for the Kordofan Observatory, told Drop Site that the strikes killed at least 152 people and wounded 47, and he blamed the attack on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Saif al-Din David, director of the Free Pens Human Rights Observatory, confirmed the same toll in Drop Site News and said the strikes also burned around 500 shops.
Wider drone campaign and health
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, warned that at least 306 people have died and hundreds have been injured in drone attacks during October, and he said the escalation is inflicting a “terrifying toll.” Al-Jazirah Net described drone attacks extending to popular markets, service facilities, and vital infrastructure across Khartoum, western Kordofan, Darfur, and Blue Nile state, and it said attacks targeted civilian objects including a hospital, displacement camps, markets, an electricity station, and a fuel station. In el-Fasher, the BBC reported evidence that Sudanese paramilitary fighters systematically destroyed the city’s healthcare system during their siege and subsequent takeover, and it quoted UN human rights chief Volker Türk calling the findings “deeply disturbing.”
The BBC investigation said it found details of at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and healthcare sites from May 2024 to October 2025, and it reported that the RSF rejected the BBC’s findings while the health minister dismissed the allegations as propaganda. Al-Jazirah Net also said a map tracking drone attacks from October 1 to October 21, 2026 was prepared by an Open-source intelligence unit at Al Jazeera, based on compiling footage and cross-referencing with official data and satellite images.