EL OBEID, Sudan – At least 13 civilians, including eight children, were killed after Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out a drone strike on a residential home in El Obeid, North Kordofan State, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Network.
The attack, which struck a house in the Al-Jallabiya neighbourhood, wiped out nine members of a single family and caused extensive damage to surrounding homes, triggering panic among residents in the city.
“In a new massacre in El Obeid, 13 people, including nine members of the same family, most of them children, were killed when the Rapid Support Forces targeted a home,” the medical advocacy group said in a statement.
El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, is a strategic hub linking Khartoum to Sudan’s western Darfur region.
It has been a key battleground since Sudan descended into civil war in April 2023, pitting the national army against the RSF.
After consolidating control over much of Darfur, the RSF has pushed into Kordofan in a bid to dominate Sudan’s central corridor and encircle army-held cities, including El Obeid.
Although the army broke a prolonged RSF siege on the city last year, paramilitary forces have continued attempts to tighten their grip on surrounding areas.
Drone attacks have intensified in recent weeks, underscoring the growing use of aerial warfare in the conflict.
On Sunday, another drone strike knocked out power to parts of El Obeid, leaving thousands without electricity, though no casualties were reported.
The latest civilian deaths come as humanitarian conditions across Kordofan worsen.
Hundreds of thousands of people face acute food shortages amid fighting that has cut off supply routes and displaced communities.
Last week, a coalition of armed groups allied with the army said it had recaptured several towns south of El Obeid, a move that could reopen a critical route to Dilling, one of South Kordofan’s besieged cities.
Sudan’s war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 11 million to flee their homes, creating what the United Nations has described as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis — and a conflict marked by “atrocities” against civilians.
