United Nations Security Council.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights,” said UNICEF Representative for Sudan Sheldon Yett in a statement on Friday.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
| Photo Credit: AP

File picture of Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) unit, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy head of the military council, secure the area where Dagalo attends a military-backed tribe’s rally, in the East Nile province, Sudan.
| Photo Credit: AP

This image grab taken from handout video footage released on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Telegram account on October 26, 2025, shows RSF fighters holding weapons and celebrating in the streets of El-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur.
| Photo Credit: FP

Pope Leo XIV delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

A Sudanese military air strike on a market in North Darfur killed more than 100 people, a pro-democracy lawyers’ group said Tuesday, as fighting raged across the war-torn country.

The Emergency Lawyers said the air strike on Monday also left hundreds injured in Kabkabiya, a town about 180 kilometres (112 miles) west of El-Fasher, the state capital that has been under siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since May.

The war between the RSF and the regular army has so far killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 11 million and created what the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.

“The air strike took place on the town’s weekly market day, where residents from various nearby villages had gathered to shop, resulting in the death of more than 100 people and injury of hundreds, including women and children,” said the lawyers’ group, which has been documenting human rights abuses during the conflict.

They described it as a “horrendous massacre committed by Army air strikes”.

In footage sent to AFP purporting to show the aftermath of the strike, people were seen sifting through rubble as the charred remains of children lay on scorched ground.

The footage, which AFP was unable to independently verify, was supplied by civil society group the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.

Though some drone attacks have been attributed to the RSF, the Sudanese military is the only party with fighter jets and maintains a functional monopoly on the skies.

In a statement Tuesday, the army accused RSF-affiliated political groups of “spreading lies” and said its forces “target rebel activity bases”.

Bus shelled

Darfur, a region the size of France, is home to around a quarter of Sudan’s population but more than half of the country’s displaced population.

Nearly all of it is now controlled by the RSF, which has also taken over swathes of the southern Kordofan region and central Sudan, while the army holds the country’s north and east.

Both forces are wrestling for full control of the war-torn capital, 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) east of El-Fasher.

In Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, paramilitary artillery fire on a passenger bus killed at least 15 people, a medical source told AFP.

The Al-Nao hospital, one of the last facilities receiving patients in the area, also “received 45 injured from different areas”, the source said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.

“We haven’t seen bombing this intense in six months,” one eyewitness to the passenger bus shelling told AFP, also requesting anonymity.

Most of Omdurman is under army control, while the RSF holds Khartoum North (Bahri) just across the Nile River.

Residents have continuously reported shelling across both sides of the river, with bombs and shrapnel regularly striking homes and civilians.

According to the United Nations, up to 80 percent of health facilities in Sudan’s worst affected areas are barely operational or closed.

‘Escalation campaign’

The lawyers’ group flagged other incidents around Sudan including one in South Darfur state capital Nyala, where they said three neighbourhoods were hit with barrel bombs on Monday evening.

They could not confirm a toll.

In North Kordofan state, a drone that had crashed on November 26 exploded on Monday evening, killing six people, the lawyers reported.

They said recent strikes across the country were part of an “escalation campaign… deliberately concentrated on densely populated residential areas”, contradicting claims by warring parties that they only target military objectives.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians and deliberately bombing residential areas.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch accused the RSF and allied Arab militias of carrying out numerous abuses against civilians in South Kordofan state from December 2023 to March 2024.

The rights organisation accused the groups of “war crimes” including “killings, rapes, and abductions of ethnic Nuba residents, as well as the looting and destruction of homes”.

The group also urged the United Nations and the African Union to deploy a mission to protect civilians in Sudan.

Sudanese women from community kitchens run by local volunteers prepare meals for people affected by the ongoing crisis.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Attacks by opposing sides in Sudan are making it difficult to provide life-saving aid amid a huge hunger crisis, said local volunteers who have helped to feed the African countries most destitute during 17 months of war.

Many volunteers have fled under threat of arrest or violence, and communal kitchens they set up in a country where hundreds are estimated to be dying of starvation and hunger-related diseases each day have stopped serving meals for weeks at a time.

Millions of people have driven from their homes in Sudan since fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

In the worst-hit areas, residents displaced by fighting or under siege in their homes have resorted to eating dirt and leaves.

International humanitarian agencies, which have been unable to get food aid to parts of Sudan at risk of famine, have ramped up support for such volunteer groups. But that has made them more of a target for RSF looters, 10 of the volunteers said.

“We were safe when the RSF did not know about the funding,” said Gihad Salaheldin, a volunteer who left Khartoum city last year and spoke from Cairo. “They see our kitchens as a source of food.”

Both sides have also attacked or detained volunteers on suspicion of collaborating with their opponents, a dozen volunteers said.

Khartoum:

At least 80 people were killed in an attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a village in Sinnar state in central Sudan, a volunteer group said.

“The RSF launched a bloody attack yesterday (Thursday) on the Jalqni village of (Abu Hujar locality) in Sinnar state, after a five-day siege, killing at least 80 people,” the Sinnar Youth Gathering said on Friday in a statement.

“The attack came after the RSF tried to kidnap girls from the village, which the residents resisted, leading to this massacre,” the statement said.

It added that the “RSF militia” responded to the citizens’ resistance by opening fire indiscriminately and storming homes, Xinhua news agency reported.

The RSF has not yet issued any comment on the incident.

Since June, the RSF has controlled large parts of Sinnar state, including the state’s capital city of Singa, while the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) controls the eastern Sinnar area.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, the fighting in Sinnar state has displaced more than 725,000 people.

Sudan has been witnessing a deadly conflict between the SAF and the RSF since April 15, 2023, which has resulted in the loss of at least 16,650 lives.

An estimated 10.7 million people are now internally displaced in Sudan, with nearly 2.2 million others seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, according to recent UN data.

Ceasefire talks began on Wednesday in Switzerland, hosted by US, Saudi and Swiss mediators, though the Sudanese army refused to take part.

Previous rounds of negotiations in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia have failed to produce an agreement to end the fighting.

The RSF, which since April 2023 has been battling Sudan’s regular army, captured the Sennar state capital of Sinja in June.

The state connects central Sudan to the army-controlled southeast, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge.

The RSF controls most of the capital Khartoum, the central state of Al-Jazira, the vast western Darfur region and large swathes of Kordofan in the south.

The war pits Army Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

It has pushed the country of 48 million to the brink of famine, according to the United Nations, and killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates of up to 150,000, according to US envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello.

More than 10 million people are currently displaced across Sudan, most in areas facing worsening humanitarian conditions as fighting spreads.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid.

Despite the Sudanese army’s no-show at the Switzerland negotiations, Perriello told AFP the talks were having some success, simply by casting international focus on Sudan at a time “when the world was turning its attention away”.

Burhan’s authorities have announced that the western Adre border crossing with Chad was set to reopen for humanitarian deliveries.

Opening the crossing “has been an essential demand for months now, to move humanitarian aid into some of the parts of Darfur that have had the most acute starvation and hunger,” Perriello said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge during a press conference after the bloc leaders meeting, in Mumbai on Friday
| Photo Credit: ANI

Mallikarjun Kharge calls meeting of INDIA bloc floor leaders on September 5 ahead of Parliament’s Special Session

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Campaigning ends for byelections to seven Assembly constituencies

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Ethnic cleansing complete in Imphal Valley, says Chidambaram

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Shivpal Singh Yadav will join the BJP: Om Prakash Rajbhar

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Iran sentences two women journalists to jail time

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At least 25 civilians killed in 48 hours in Sudan: activists, medic

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Asia Cup 2023: Bangladesh keep themselves alive with 89-run win over Afghanistan

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