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14-06-2026
KHARTOUM: A drone strike on a funeral procession at a cemetery in the Sudanese city of el-Obeid has killed at least four people and injured several others, two rights groups, Sudan Doctors Network and Emergency Lawyers, have said.
Both groups blame the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the attack. Emergency Lawyers said it was part of a series of drone strikes that started on Wednesday evening in which at least 23 people have died in all.
The RSF has not commented.
El-Obeid, currently in the hands of the army, is a key battleground in Sudan’s three-year civil war which began after the leaders of the army and RSF fell out over the future direction of the country.
The fighting has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with more than 11 million people forced from their homes and 28 million facing acute hunger.
There are no reliable figures for the death toll but it is thought to be at least 150,000 and could be as much as 400,000.
In addition to the attack on the cemetery, Emergency Lawyers said that drones struck homes in a residential neighborhood, the airport district and areas surrounding an army base. Thirteen civilians were killed, the group said, as civilians gathered near destroyed houses.
It also reported that five civilians were killed in earlier attacks.
“It is tragic. The roofs of houses collapsed on their occupants. When you look at some houses, you feel no-one could have survived,” one resident told media in the wake of the attacks.
In another attack a driver of a lorry carrying food supplies died when his vehicle was struck on Thursday, both Emergency Lawyers and Sudan Doctors Network have said. The two groups describe systematic and repeated attacks on civilians in el-Obeid for several days.
The city is in the country’s oil-rich Kordofan region which is divided into North, South and West Kordofan states.
It became a major front line in the war due to its strategic significance, sitting between RSF-controlled areas in the west and eastern areas where the army is mostly in charge.
Analysts say whoever controls the region effectively controls the country’s oil supply, as well as a large chunk of the country.
Sudan plunged into a civil war in April 2023 after a vicious struggle for power broke out between its army and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
It has led to a famine and claims of a genocide in the western Darfur region with fears for the residents of city of el-Fasher after it was recently captured by the RSF.
More than 150,000 people have died in the conflict across the country and about 12 million have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Why is there a civil war?
It is the latest episode in bouts of tension that followed the 2019 ousting of long-serving President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in a coup in 1989.
There were huge street protests calling for an end to his near-three decade rule and the army mounted a coup to get rid of him but civilians continued to campaign for the introduction of democracy.
A joint military-civilian government was then established but that was overthrown in another coup in October 2021.
The main sticking points were plans to incorporate the 100,000-strong RSF into the army and who would then lead the new force. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
