A drone attack on a market in Abyei, a border region disputed by South Sudan and Sudan, has killed at least 153 people, according to a South Sudanese official. The Abyei administration's caretaker minister of information on Tuesday blamed the attack, which took place a day earlier on Amiet Market, north of Abyei town, on Sudan's military. He told the news agency Reuters that the "situation is terrible", adding that some bodies had been burned to ashes. Blaming the Sudanese military for the attack, South Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said drones hit several locations in the market. It said it has summoned Sudan's ambassador and called for its northern neighbour to "refrain" from acts that endanger civilian lives and property.

A wave of drone attacks across Sudan has killed more than 160 people in recent days, according to medics and rights groups. D rone attacks on Khartoum killed three children on Monday, according to Emergency Lawyers, a group that monitors violence against civilians in Sudan's civil war, while more than 160 were reported to have been killed in western regions since Friday. The deadliest recent attack was near a market on Sunday evening in Al-Dibab town in the southwestern state of West Kordofan, which is controlled by the RSF. Residents and medical workers said a drone attacked a transport hub where villagers had gathered after a market day to find rides home, killing 80 people. Another 47 wounded people were taken to the nearby town of Al-Mujlad, where 30 later died from their injuries, a medical source said, according to the AFP news agency.

Drone strike kills 30 people in Sudan's Blue Nile region Share Drone strike kills 30 people in Sudan's Blue Nile region on social media At least 30 displaced people, including women and children, have been killed and dozens of others have been wounded following a drone attack in southeastern Sudan. The governor of Wad al-Mahi province told Al Jazeera on Friday that a drone belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the centre of the province, killing 26 women and four children. He said the drone was launched from "inside Ethiopia", according to the AFP news agency. Al Jazeera Arabic's Sudan correspondent, Wadah Al-Tahir, explained that the attack was the latest in a wave of drone strikes targeting the Blue Nile region and this time Wad al-Mahi province near the city of Damazin was struck. Friday's attack was just outside a displacement camp, near an informal gold mining site, where women earn a daily wage using chemicals and their bare hands to clear gold nuggets from the earth extracted by men.

Sudan's army advances in North Kordofan as RSF drone attacks intensify The United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned drone strikes and other attacks on civilians in Sudan, warning warring parties that there is "no military solution to the crisis" in the country. The statement on Monday came as the World Food Programme said an air attack had hit a truck carrying food supplies in North Kordofan, killing one person. Sudan urged member states to reject the measure, stating the council had failed to take its reservations into account. The war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which began in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million, according to estimates cited by human rights groups. The resolution demanded "an immediate and complete ceasefire by all parties, without preconditions", along with an independent monitoring mechanism and the restoration of basic infrastructure.

Foreign recruitment and external support networks are sustaining and expanding the civil war in Sudan by providing weapons, military technology and fighters, to the detriment of civilians, according to a United Nations-backed investigation. A report by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, released on Thursday, said transnational entities operating across several countries recruited, trained and deployed foreign personnel to support the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since April 2023, the conflict between the SAF and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of Sudanese and forced millions to flee their homes. "This support fed into RSF operations in Zamzam camp and later during the takeover of el-Fasher, where the [UN] Mission documented grave human rights and international humanitarian law violations and international crimes, including conduct displaying hallmarks of genocide," mission member Mona Rishmawi said. The report said external entities have substantially enhanced the drone capabilities of both the RSF and the SAF, enabling them to strike far beyond front lines.

Has the army turned the page on control of western Sudan? In early August, Sudan's military and allied groups repelled two successive attacks by the RSF in the strategically important Bir Saliba region. It lies about 30km (nearly 20 miles) north of el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state and the RSF's last stronghold in the region. The strategy could signal a shift in fighting towards el-Geneina. Leading to el-Geneina, the Bir Saliba region is of strategic importance.

El-Obeid under siege by RSF: Could this be Sudan's next el-Fasher? Half a million people are trapped in the Sudanese city of el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group tries to enforce its dominance over the Kordofan and Darfur regions during a civil war that has wrought devastation on the country for three years. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned of an impending humanitarian "catastrophe" as el-Obeid is expected to be the next site for major ground clashes between the RSF and Sudanese military. Many countries have also raised the alarm about atrocities being carried out in the city. El-Obeid, which has been cut off by continuous drone attacks for months, is under threat after the mass atrocities carried out by the RSF in el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state.

'Digging with a needle': Generals stall peace as Sudan's el-Obeid burns As drone attacks rain down on el-Obeid and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) tighten their months-long siege, the capital of North Kordofan has emerged as the latest flashpoint in Sudan's grinding war of attrition. Despite mounting international alarm and renewed US diplomatic pressure aimed at securing a nationwide truce, Sudan's warring generals remain deeply entrenched. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF appear locked in a pursuit of outright military victory, largely sustained by a continuous flow of foreign weapons. Through the lens of the escalating crisis in el-Obeid, a grim reality is unfolding: Civilian suffering is increasingly weaponised amid polarised domestic narratives, while geopolitical manoeuvring repeatedly stalls any viable path to peace. El-Obeid holds immense strategic value.

Sudan's army has denied it carried out a deadly attack on a major hospital on Friday night in a city in the west of the country held by its rivals, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said 64 people - including 13 children, two nurses and a doctor - had died in the strike on el-Daein Teaching Hospital and 89 others had been wounded. Enough blood has been spilled, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X, urging the warring parties to end the conflict, which started nearly three years ago. The RSF said an army drone had hit the hospital in el-Daein, the capital of East Darfur state, on the day Muslims were marking the festival of Eid. Sudan was plunged into a civil war in April 2023 when a vicious struggle for power broke out between the military and the RSF, who had once been allies after coming to power in a coup in 2021.

A drone attack launched from Sudan has killed 17 people in Chad, according to the Chadian government, which has pledged to retaliate against any further strikes as the civil war in the neighbouring nation rages on. A spokesman for the Chadian government announced the death toll on Thursday from the attack on the border town of Tine, which had been targeted despite "various firm warnings addressed to the different belligerents in the Sudan conflict and the closure of the border". Local government sources said it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, according to Reuters. Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby called a meeting of the defence and security council on Wednesday night, ordering the army to "retaliate starting from tonight to any attack coming from Sudan", according to a presidency statement. Early on Thursday, the government said Chad had strengthened its security presence at the border and could potentially carry out operations on Sudanese territory.