At least 28 civilians were killed and dozens wounded on Tuesday when a drone operated by the Sudanese Armed Forces struck a crowded market in the city of Ghabesh in Sudan’s West Kordofan state, which is controlled by a brutal militia opposed to Sudan’s military, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both the military and the RSF have routinely committed human rights violations and murdered civilians in Sudan’s civil war, especially the RSF, which has committed genocide against certain ethnic groups, such as the Masalit people.
The drone strike hit the Ghabesh local market while it was packed with civilians, causing deaths and injuries of great severity. A doctors group said the the attack was accompanied by a campaign to cause starvation through deliberate food scarcity and rising commodity prices. Ghabesh market is one of the main commercial hubs in the region, serving hundreds of thousands of civilians across West Kordofan and neighboring areas as a primary source of food and household essentials. Military vehicles of a militia opposed to Sudan’s military (the RSF) were seen near a restaurant in the Ghabesh market that had been hit in the drone attack. Both the military and the RSF have utilized drone attacks across wide areas of western and central Sudan. In the first four months of this year, 28 drone attacks were mounted against markets and 12 drone strikes were aimed at healthcare facilities, and many fuel depots were hit by drone strikes. Earlier this year, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said drone strikes had killed 880 civilians so far this year.
Sudan’s military has deliberately blocked the flow of food relief into desperately poor areas of Sudan controlled by the RSF.
Meanwhile, the RSF has “engaged in ethnic cleansing in Sudan’s Darfur region, killing non-Arab peoples in Sudan’s Darfur region. It also abducted and killed a provincial governor. Khamis Abakar, the governor of West Darfur, was murdered hours after he accused the RSF of ‘genocide’, in a June 14 statement to a Saudi news channel. He was killed in the city of el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. ‘Civilians are being killed randomly and in large numbers,’ he said. Moreover, the “RSF has targeted Masalit refugee camps, killed people attempting to escape to neighboring Chad, kidnapped and raped women and systematically killed influential figures in the community, such as tribal leaders and human rights lawyers and monitors.”
