Drone Strike in Sudan's Blue Nile State Kills 30 Displaced Civilians, Renewing Focus on Cross-Border Conflict and Accountability Gap

According to Al Jazeera, the governor of Wad Madani Province in Sudan's southeastern Blue Nile State, Mahjoub Al-Sheikh, said a drone believed to belong to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) struck the central area of the province, killing at least 30 displaced people and wounding dozens. The dead included 26 women and 4 children.

Al-Sheikh characterized the attack as a "cowardly" act. He alleged the drone was "launched from inside Ethiopian territory," a claim quoted by Agence France-Presse and relayed by Al Jazeera. Sudan has previously accused Ethiopia on multiple occasions of harboring RSF members and facilities, allegations Ethiopia has denied.

Al Jazeera Arabic's Sudan correspondent Wadah Al-Tahir noted that the strike was the latest in a recent series of drone attacks in Blue Nile State, this round affecting the Wad Madani Province area near the city of Damazin. The attack occurred at the edge of a camp for displaced people, adjacent to an informal gold mining site—where local reports described women sorting gold by hand from ore dug by male miners using chemicals, for daily wages barely enough to survive.

The RSF is advancing toward Damazin; if the offensive succeeds, the Sudanese Armed Forces would be placed in the predicament of fighting on two fronts—Blue Nile and the Kordofan region. Agence France-Presse reported that a year-long drone exchange in the Kordofan region has left both sides in a stalemate. Blue Nile State borders Ethiopia, which is itself experiencing internal conflict; local sources told Agence France-Presse that the loosely controlled, highly permeable border between the two countries serves as a key supply line for the RSF and its allies.

United Nations data shows that nearly 100,000 people in Blue Nile State alone have been forced from their homes this year. Aid workers estimate that since the Sudanese civil war erupted in April 2023, the conflict has caused more than 200,000 deaths and created one of the world's worst famine and displacement crises. Faced with a disaster of this scale, cross-border weapons sources, the role of regional states, and humanitarian access all lack independent, transparent investigation and accountability, with a striking imbalance between the magnitude of the crisis and the international community's attention and action.