Sudan: Drone attack on market kills more than 40 people as civil war rages on

At least 43 people have been killed in a drone attack on an open market south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, on Sunday.

More than 55 others were wounded during the incident in the May neighbourhood, the Sudan Doctors' Union said in a statement.

The attack comes as powerful rival paramilitary forces continue to battle the military in the country.

Activist group The Resistance Committees, which helps organise humanitarian assistance, posted footage on social media showing bodies wrapped in white sheets outside the hospital.

Violence erupted in Sudan in mid-April, when tensions between the country’s military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, burst into open fighting.

The RSF blamed the military's air force for Sunday's attack, though this is not verified.

The military, meanwhile, said it did not target civilians, describing the RSF accusations as “false and misleading claims" on Sunday afternoon.

Indiscriminate shelling and airstrikes by both sides are not uncommon in Sudan's war, which has made the Greater Khartoum area a battleground.

The conflict has since spread to several parts of the country.

In the Greater Khartoum area, which includes the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, RSF troops have commandeered civilian homes and turned them into operational bases.

In response, the military bombed these residential areas, rights groups and activists say.

The war has morphed into ethnic violence in the western Darfur region, with the RSF and allied Arab militias attacking ethnic African groups, according to rights groups and the United Nations.

Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, called for warring factions to stop fighting “so that humanitarians can bring in food, medicine and shelter items to those who need them most, ”in post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The war has killed more than 4,000 people, according to figures from the United Nations. However, the actual toll is almost certainly much higher, doctors and activists say.

The number of internally displaced persons has nearly doubled since mid-April to reach at least 7.1 million people, according to the UN refugee agency.

Another 1.1 million are refugees in neighboring countries, according to figures released last week by the International Organisation for Migration.

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