Drone strike kills at least 30 displaced people in Sudan's Blue Nile region

At least 30 displaced people have been killed in a drone strike in Sudan's Blue Nile region, according to local officials. The attack hit Wad al-Mahi province near the city of Damazin on Friday, close to a displacement camp and an informal gold mining site. Dozens more people were wounded in the strike, which local authorities said targeted the centre of the province.

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The governor of Wad al-Mahi province said the drone belonged to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and that 26 women and four children were among the dead. He described the attack as cowardly. He also said the drone was launched from inside Ethiopia, according to the account relayed by the AFP news agency.

The claim has not been independently verified in the supplied material. The strike is the latest in a wave of drone attacks in the Blue Nile region, which borders Ethiopia. The area has become a frontline in the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, with the conflict increasingly spilling into border zones.

Local sources say the porous frontier has served as a supply line for the paramilitary and its allies, while Sudan has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of harbouring RSF fighters and bases. Ethiopia has denied those allegations. The attack also matters because it adds to the pressure on an already fragile humanitarian situation in Blue Nile state.

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United Nations figures cited in the supplied material say nearly 100,000 people have been displaced in the state this year alone. Aid workers estimate that Sudan's civil war has killed more than 200,000 people since it began in April 2023, and the conflict has created one of the world's largest hunger and displacement crises. The latest strike therefore carries both immediate civilian consequences and wider implications for the war's regional reach.

The area around Damazin has become strategically important because it sits near the border with Ethiopia and lies within a wider conflict landscape that includes fighting in Kordofan. The supplied material says the RSF has launched an offensive towards Damazin, raising the possibility that the army may be forced to defend territory on multiple fronts. That would add to a year of deadly drone strikes in Kordofan, where the two sides have remained deadlocked.

The Blue Nile front now appears to be part of that broader pattern of escalation. What remains unclear is the full scale of the damage, the condition of the wounded, and whether the attack was carried out exactly as described by local officials. The supplied material does not include an independent casualty assessment or a response from the RSF or Ethiopian authorities.

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