A Sunday gathering to settle local disputes in western Darfur turned deadly when Sudanese army drones hit a traditional court, killing at least 35 people, a rights group reported.
Emergency Lawyers, a group that has tracked abuses by both the army and rival paramilitary forces during Sudan’s three-year war, said the attack struck the court in Garra al-Zawaya, a village in North Darfur state, at about 1 p.m. local time (11 a.m. GMT). Civilians had “gathered to attend hearings on local cases and disputes,” the group said.
Garra al-Zawaya is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been fighting the Sudanese army since April 2023 in a conflict that has devastated large parts of the country.
“The court session was being held under a tree with the participation of local community leaders,” a witness from the area told Agence France-Presse (AFP), speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
The witness said the dead included “four tribal leaders and two RSF commanders.”
The Sudanese army did not immediately comment. The RSF’s self-declared government denounced the strike as “a horrific crime,” putting the toll at 37 killed and 50 wounded.
The village lies near Kabkabiya in North Darfur, roughly 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of el-Fasher. The city had been the army’s last major foothold in Darfur before the RSF seized it in a violent offensive last October.
U.N. investigators have said the violence surrounding the RSF siege and capture of el-Fasher bears “the hallmarks of genocide.”
After taking el-Fasher, the RSF — which grew out of the Janjaweed militia accused of atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s — tightened its grip over much of the region.
RSF ‘unleashed’
Drone attacks have become an increasingly prominent feature of the war since the el-Fasher campaign. The United Nations says more than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes in the first five months of this year.
Last week, after the RSF lost control of a strategic highway connecting the capital Khartoum with the city of el-Obeid, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo released a video message telling his fighters to consider themselves “unleashed” in the war against the army.
El-Obeid, the largest city in southern Kordofan, has faced heavy drone attacks in recent weeks. The U.N. has issued a “red alert” over what it called an unfolding “catastrophe” there, as the RSF seeks to restore a blockade and is feared to be preparing a ground assault.
U.N. officials have repeatedly warned that RSF advances in el-Obeid and the wider Kordofan region could trigger mass atrocities.
The war between Daglo and his former ally, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and produced what the United Nations calls the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The RSF, however, has faced especially grave allegations of systematic sexual violence, looting and mass atrocities.
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