A drone strike blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed two children and injured 12 others on Wednesday in El-Rahad, a city in South Kordofan, according to a medical source.
The source told AFP that the strike hit a traditional Koranic school, leaving students among the casualties.
“I saw a dozen students injured,” eyewitness Ahmed Moussa said, adding that the drone struck the school during the attack.
The Kordofan region has become one of the fiercest battle zones in the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023.
El-Rahad occupies a strategic location along a key route linking El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, to the White Nile river — the army’s main supply line to the capital, Khartoum.
The army retook El-Rahad in February as part of an offensive that broke a prolonged RSF siege on El-Obeid. However, the RSF has since attempted to re-encircle El-Obeid, launching repeated drone strikes along the eastern highway connecting the western Darfur region to the rest of Sudan.
The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around 11 million, creating what aid agencies describe as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis.
The fighting has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army controlling the north, centre and east, while the RSF and allied forces dominate much of the west and parts of the south.
Although the RSF consolidated control over Darfur in October, recent developments suggest the army may be regaining ground. In recent days, it has broken two RSF sieges on the South Kordofan cities of Dilling and Kadugli.
Both cities have been heavily affected by violence, with hundreds of thousands of residents facing severe food shortages amid near-daily drone strikes.
According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, more than 115,000 people were displaced between late October and February.
The warring parties have exchanged drone attacks across the oil- and gold-rich Kordofan region, with civilians frequently caught in the crossfire.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said this week that at least 90 civilians were killed and 142 injured in drone strikes over a period of just over two weeks. He noted that both sides had targeted civilian infrastructure, including markets, residential areas, health facilities and even a World Food Programme convoy.
The World Health Organization also reported that three health facilities in South Kordofan were attacked during the first week of February alone, killing 30 people.
The latest strike in El-Rahad adds to mounting concerns over the impact of the conflict on children and other vulnerable populations in the region.
