Army drone strike on a Nyala market kills dozens. Rights groups say more than 100 died; the army says it hit RSF recruits

ADDIS ABABA — A drone strike by Sudan’s army on a crowded market on the edge of Nyala, the main city of South Darfur, has killed dozens of people and possibly more than 100, in one of the deadliest single attacks of the war this month. The two sides give very different accounts of who was there.

The strike hit the market in the Dumaya neighbourhood, west of the city, at about 8pm on Monday. Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group that tracks the war, said more than 100 people were killed and 113 wounded, many of them women and children, and called for an independent investigation, the Associated Press reported. Alaa al-Din Nugud, health minister in the RSF-aligned Tasis administration, which has made Nyala its capital, put the toll at 102 killed and 113 injured at Tanqong market, Radio Tamazuj reported. Radio Tamazuj said videos it reviewed showed victims being buried in a mass grave.

What the hospital saw

Médecins Sans Frontières said the Nyala Teaching Hospital it supports had received 36 bodies, 21 of them in civilian clothing, and that its staff had seen more than 150 wounded patients in the emergency room. A second strike hit a residential neighbourhood, MSF said, and the wounded were brought in on tuk-tuks and donkey carts. “This is appalling. Markets, homes, and key civilian infrastructure are not targets. All parties to the conflict must protect civilians,” said Dale Koninckx, MSF’s project coordinator in Nyala.

Two versions

The army side says it hit a military target. Mohamed Didan, spokesman for the Special Operations Forces fighting alongside the army, wrote on Facebook that more than 150 “militia recruits” had been killed at the Dumaya camp in a “precise and targeted airstrike”, AP reported. A cigarette seller told AP that hundreds of Rapid Support Forces fighters had gathered at the market that evening. Another witness estimated that about 14 civilians were killed, most of them women selling tea and food, and said civilians often gather wherever fighters congregate to make a living. Sudan Doctors Network gave a lower toll of at least 21 dead and more than 40 wounded and attributed the attack to shelling. It said the identities of the victims and why they were at the site were still being verified. AP said it could not independently verify the figures.

It was the second strike on a Nyala market this month: on 16 October a drone hit the Al-Mawashi livestock market, killing at least four people, according to MSF. The share of children seeking treatment for severe acute malnutrition in Nyala more than doubled between January and August, from 5% to 11%, AP reported, citing UN figures. On the same day the government in Khartoum renewed its accusation that drones attacking its own power stations were being launched from Ethiopia.

AB24’s reading from Addis Ababa: both sides now use drones against places where civilians gather, and in Nyala it is not clear where fighters ended and market traders began. That makes an independent account of who died important. Watch whether the UN or the African Union backs the call for an investigation.

Sources: Associated Press, 27–28 Oct 2026 (via Newser); Radio Tamazuj, 27 Oct 2026; MSF via ReliefWeb, 27 Oct 2026. Casualty figures vary by source and have not been independently verified.

— AB24 · Addis Ababa