Drone strike near girls’ school in Darfur kills 12, including six children, as Sudan’s aerial war on civilians intensifies

A drone strike has killed 12 civilians, including six children, in the paramilitary-controlled town of Kutum in Sudan’s North Darfur state, a medical source and local activists confirmed on Thursday — the latest in a relentless wave of aerial attacks that the United Nations has warned may amount to war crimes.

The strike on Wednesday comes amid an increase in drone attacks by both Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war since April 2023. A medical source told AFP that those brought to the hospital in Kutum included 12 dead, among them six children, including three female secondary school students. Sixteen others were injured, including women and children, and are receiving treatment. The source spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

The el-Fasher Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group, said the strike hit the al-Salama neighbourhood near al-Um Girls’ School, blaming the Sudanese army for the attack. Neither the army nor the RSF immediately claimed responsibility for or denied the strike.

The Kutum attack is part of an alarming escalation in drone warfare that has claimed hundreds of civilian lives across Sudan in recent months. According to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), over 500 civilians were killed in drone strikes between January 1 and March 15, 2026, with the vast majority of deaths documented in three states in the Kordofan region.

In the first two weeks of March alone, over 277 civilians were killed, with more than three-quarters of those deaths caused by drone strikes.

One of the single deadliest incidents occurred on March 20, the first day of Eid al-Fitr, when a drone and air strike hit the Teaching Hospital in Al Daein, East Darfur’s capital. The UN World Health Organization confirmed the death toll rose to 70, including seven women and 13 children, with 146 people injured, including health workers — one doctor and two nurses among the dead.

Earlier, in El Fasher, North Darfur, more than 120 civilians were killed in drone strikes targeting neighbourhoods, shelters, and mosques, including one attack on a mosque that killed approximately 75 people. In Kadugli, South Kordofan, the UN reported that drone strikes targeted a kindergarten and a hospital in December 2025, resulting in at least 100 to 116 civilian deaths.

Both warring parties are competing intensely to acquire unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies, with new types of drones entering Sudan for the first time during this conflict, including lethal Chinese-made CH-95 and FH-95 models. Technically, the use of first-person view (FPV) and kamikaze suicide drones has spread between both sides, with heavy usage documented in Khartoum, Al-Jazirah, El Fasher, and other regions.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called on both the army and the RSF to stop attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure, warning that drone strikes on civilian facilities may amount to war crimes.

The UN stressed that the continued pattern of attacks raises “serious concerns” over violations of international humanitarian law, particularly the principles of distinction and proportionality, and called on all parties to protect civilians, while urging countries with influence over the warring parties to halt the flow of weapons.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres strongly condemned the ongoing killings, calling on the rival military leaderships “to immediately de-escalate the fighting and agree on a cessation of hostilities.”

The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, now entering its fourth year, has produced what international agencies describe as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises — with millions displaced, widespread famine confirmed in multiple regions, and a civilian population increasingly targeted by aerial bombardment with little prospect of protection.