The death toll from the attack carried out by a Sudanese army drone on the city of Kutum in North Darfur state has risen to 86, including both dead and wounded, the majority of whom are women and children, according to local and medical sources and eyewitnesses who spoke to Sky News Arabia.
According to the sources, the drone targeted a wedding ceremony in the Al-Salamah neighborhood on Wednesday evening in a tragic incident that turned a social gathering into a bloodbath, with the strike killing 36 people, including 19 children, and injuring about 50 others. some of whom later arrived at the hospital succumbing to their injuries, amid a severe shortage of medicine and medical staff, according to a medical source at the city hospital.
Abdullah Younis, a local community leader in the area, told Sky News Arabia that this attack does not appear to be an isolated incident, stating that “army drones have routinely and intentionally targeted civilians in Darfur,” adding that the bombing was not limited to the wedding but also struck other civilian sites within the city.
While the Sudanese army has not yet issued any official comment on the incident, the Rapid Support Forces stated in a release that the bombing of a wedding represents “an extension of a repeated and systematic approach to targeting civilians,” describing the incident as “a serious crime reflecting a worrying escalation in the frequency of targeting civilians.”
For their part, political and civil society groups condemned the incident, calling for an end to the war and for a comprehensive international investigation into what they described as “massacres” being committed against civilians.
The Coordination of El Fasher Resistance Committees stated that “the targeting of civilians is reprehensible by any standard, and we condemn this incident in the strongest terms, as it constitutes a flagrant violation of humanitarian values and international law.”
This incident comes three weeks after an airstrike targeted the Al-Da’ein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur State, killing at least 64 people—including children, medical staff, and patients—and wounding approximately 90 others, in one of the deadliest attacks on a healthcare facility.
This brings the number of civilians killed in airstrikes attributed to the Sudanese army to approximately 100 dead and 140 wounded in less than a month, a dangerous indication of the escalating targeting of civilians and civilian areas.
These incidents reflect a broader pattern of escalating drone use in the conflict, as statistics released by the “Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project” indicate that 198 drone strikes were recorded in Sudan during January and February, including 52 attacks that resulted in civilian casualties, killing 478 people.
Given these figures, the suffering of civilians in Darfur and other conflict zones appears set to worsen as the war continues, accountability remains absent, and military operations that fail to distinguish between the battlefield and everyday life persist.
