The Sudanese military has fighter jets while the RSF has been accused of using drones
Cairo, December 11 – At least 127 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Sudan on Monday and Tuesday by barrel bombs and shelling from the warring sides, rights activists said.
The 20-month-old war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been turning increasingly bloody as ceasefire efforts have stalled, and crises elsewhere have dominated world attention.
The army has stepped up airstrikes in the half of the country that the RSF controls, while the RSF has staged raids on villages and intense artillery strikes. Both have targeted densely populated civilian areas.
More than eight barrel bombs hit the market in the North Darfur town of Kabkabiya on Monday, the pro-democracy Al-Fashir Resistance Committee said. Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group, said more than 100 had been killed and hundreds wounded.
The army has frequently targeted towns in North Darfur with airstrikes as it fights the RSF for control of the state capital, al-Fashir, its last foothold in the region.
It denied responsibility for the attack on Kabkabiya, while insisting that it had the right to target any location used by the RSF for military purposes. The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An image shared by Emergency Lawyers showed shrouded bodies in a mass grave.
Video verified by Reuters showed bloodied bodies strewn around the market. It also showed fires burning and people being carried from the wreckage of stores and fruit stalls.
People can be heard crying and screaming in the footage, while others pray for those who were killed. One man is heard saying “People are dying wholesale”.
The video also shows armed men in the headwraps typically worn by RSF soldiers on motorcycles.
An activist from Kabkabiya said that, while there were typically a few soldiers in the market and other parts of the town, the vast majority of those present were civilians.
He said 87 bodies had been identified, but that some were too charred or mutilated to identify.
On Tuesday, the RSF aimed heavy artillery fire at an army-controlled sector of Omdurman, part of Khartoum state, residents said.
People walk past a destroyed vehicle, following shelling by the Rapid Support Forces, in Omdurman, Sudan, December 10, 2024.
Emergency Lawyers said at least 20 people had been killed, including at least 14 who were riding on a bus that was hit. The state government, controlled by the army, said 65 people had been killed, and that other casualties had been transferred to nearby Al-Naw Hospital.
Images circulating on social media showed shrouded bodies on the street amid vehicle wreckage.
The Emergency Lawyers rights group described the bombing in Kabkabiya town on Monday, the weekly market day, as a “horrific massacre”.
According to Emergency Lawyers, the air strike happened as residents from nearby villages came to shop in Kabkabiya, about 180km (112 miles) west of el-Fasher, the only city still under military control in Darfur and which has been under siege since April.
“This attack on civilians on market day is a flagrant violation of international law,” said Emergency Lawyers, adding that hundreds of people had also been injured in the air strike.
The group has also condemned the RSF for its indiscriminate shelling of Omdurman, the city just across the River Nile from the capital, Khartoum.
Emergency Lawyers said that 14 people had died after a shell hit a bus on Tuesday.
It also condemned the RSF for using civilian infrastructure, such as fuel stations, for military purposes.
On Sunday, an air strike hit a petrol station in an RSF-controlled area of Khartoum, killing at least 28 people.
A volunteer group, the South Belt Emergency Response Room, said that 37 people were also injured.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has appealed to the United Nations and the African Union to urgently deploy troops to Sudan to protect civilians.
The United Nations has said more than 30 million people need aid, and some 12 million have fled their homes.
Famine has been declared in Zamzam camp in North Darfur, where shelling on Tuesday killed seven people, according to Adam Rojal, spokesperson of the Coordinating Committee for Displaced People.
