RSF Drone Strike Kills 30 in Sudan

A drone strike launched by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed 26 women and four children near the country’s southeastern border with Ethiopia, according to a local official and eyewitnesses.

The attack occurred on Friday near an informal gold-mining site outside a displacement camp in Abu Shendi, Blue Nile state, where survivors later buried the victims, one person involved in the burial told AFP.

The victims included young girls who worked alongside their families to process gold, another eyewitness said. Women at the site earned daily wages by using chemicals and their bare hands to extract gold from earth dug up by male miners.

The strike highlights the growing dangers facing civilians as fighting between Sudan’s regular army and the RSF spreads towards the Ethiopian border. The area has become a key front in the conflict, raising fears that the war could spill into a wider regional crisis.

Mahgoub al-Sheikh, governor of Wad al-Mahi, where the attack occurred, said the drone had been launched from inside Ethiopia.

Sudan has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of allowing RSF fighters and bases to operate within its territory. Ethiopia has denied the allegations, although local sources describe the porous border as an important supply route for the paramilitary group and its allies.

The gold trade, worth billions of dollars and sustained largely by informal mining operations such as the one near Abu Shendi, has also become a source of funding for both sides in the war.

Since the conflict began in April 2023, it has killed more than 200,000 people, according to estimates by aid workers, and triggered the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises. United Nations figures show that nearly 100,000 people have been displaced across Blue Nile state this year alone.

The RSF has continued its offensive towards El-Damazin, the capital of Blue Nile state, raising the prospect of the army having to defend multiple fronts simultaneously.

The advance could stretch government forces already engaged in fighting in the Kordofan region, where months of deadly drone attacks have contributed to a stalemate between the two sides.

Now in its fourth year, the war has increasingly relied on armed drones, allowing both forces to strike targets over long distances without exposing their fighters directly to combat.

UN figures indicate that drone attacks killed more than 1,100 people in the first five months of this year alone.

The United Nations has described the conflict as a war marked by atrocities against civilians, including ethnic massacres, famine and indiscriminate attacks on residential areas. The RSF has also faced accusations of genocide and systematic sexual violence.

Efforts to bring the rival forces to negotiations have repeatedly failed as army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, formerly allies, continue their struggle for control.

The United Nations has warned that external support, including weapons and mercenaries, is helping sustain the conflict.

The United Arab Emirates has denied widespread reports that it supports the RSF through neighbouring countries, while the Sudanese army has received backing from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.