Sudan aid groups say 54 killed in an airstrike blamed on the miliary in Darfur
CAIRO (AP) — An airstrike blamed on the Sudanese military hit a local market in Sudan’s western region, igniting a huge fire and killing at least 54 people, aid groups said Tuesday. The military denied targeting civilians.
The strike took place Monday in the village of Tora, north of el-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur province, said Adam Rejal, a spokesman for the General Coordination, a local group helping displaced people in Darfur.
Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah, a spokesperson for the Sudanese military, denied that they targeted civilians.
He told The Associated Press that these allegations were “incorrect, which are raised whenever our forces exercise their constitutional and legal right to deal with hostile targets.”
The strike tore apart a large part of the village’s weekly market, leaving many bodies charred, according to footage shared by Support Darfur Victims, a local group that provides support to victims of the Darfur conflict.
More than half of the dead were women, according to a list of casualties provided by Rejal. At least 23 people were wounded and seven were missing, the list showed.
Tora is located 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the city of el-Fasher, which remains held by the Sudanese military despite near-daily strikes by the powerful rival paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
The strike was the latest deadly attack in a war that started in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open warfare across the country.
The war wrecked the capital, and other urban cities across the country. It has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country. Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll.
The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.
The military has made steady field advances in recent months against the RSF in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. In March, It regained control of most of the strategic and government buildings in the capital, including the Republican Palace — the seat of the pre-war government.