Sudanupdated 12m ago3 min read
Sudanese Army Drone Strike Hits Abyei Market, Kills At Least 153
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Drone strike hit Amiet Market in Abyei, killing at least 153 people. Strike targeted a fuel depot near the market and caused a large fire.
Amiet Market hit
A drone strike on a market in Abyei hit a nearby fuel depot and killed at least 153 people, with a fire still burning on Tuesday, a local official said. Yohanna Akol Ngor, the Abyei administration’s caretaker information minister, blamed Sudan’s military for Monday’s attack on Amiet Market, north of Abyei town, and said the death toll was continuing to rise as the fire burned. A senior Sudanese military officer told The Associated Press that the army carried out a drone strike Monday targeting fuel tankers arriving from South Sudan that he said were bound for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The BBC reported that in Abyei, 153 people were killed on Monday when drones struck a market, and a military source told the BBC that the market served as a fuel-supply site for the RSF. The UN secretary-general condemned drone attacks near Amiet Market and Todach, saying dozens of civilians, including women and children, had been killed and many others injured, and the UN said many people remained missing and the toll was expected to rise as UNISFA continued verifying casualties.
Blame and medical response
Yohanna Akol Ngor told Reuters that the “situation is terrible”, adding that some bodies had been burned to ashes, and he said fires continued to burn at the site.
South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed Sudan’s military, said it had summoned Sudan’s ambassador, and urged Sudan to “refrain from any actions that endanger civilian lives and property.”
Doctors Without Borders said it was treating more than 20 wounded people at Ameth Bek Hospital, where MSF teams were working alongside staff from South Sudan’s Health Ministry.
Dr. Christian Lindauer, MSF’s medical activities manager at the hospital, said, “So far we received over 20 patients, including several critical cases. Patients with burns were also admitted,” as the UN continued verifying casualties.
Yohanna Akol Ngor said, “We have recorded 153 deaths,” while a witness described hearing five large explosions that led to a fuel depot catching fire and seeing “28 bodies that were burnt.”
Wider war stakes
The wave of drone strikes began Sunday evening and the Abyei attack occurred Monday around 11:30 local time, targeting the Amiet market located about 10 km from the town of Abyei. The growing use of armed drones comes as 20 million people face acute hunger, with a rising risk of famine in parts of the western Darfur region and Greater Kordofan, and Greater Kordofan is described as a vital axis connecting Darfur, controlled by the RSF, to the capital Khartoum, now in army hands. The attack in Abyei pushed the death toll from a series of strikes in recent days past 250, and the war erupted in April 2023 between the SAF and the paramilitary RSF.
The UN Interim Security Force for Abyei, UNISFA, was deployed to provide emergency treatment, help evacuate casualties, and prevent the fire from spreading, while the UN continued verifying casualties. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan said “available evidence indicates that, since late 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces has significantly expanded its drone capabilities through foreign-supplied systems,” and it said the findings documented attacks attributed to the SAF on locations where “civilian presence was substantial or readily foreseeable.”