Drone attacks are intensifying in Sudan – hitting schools and camps homing the displaced
The smell of explosives is still in the air when we arrive.
Hours before, a displacement camp in Atbara housing families who fled the war in Sudan’s capital Khartoum was hit by two drone strikes in a four-pronged attack.
The first bomb on 25 April burned donated tents and killed the children in them.
The second hit a school serving as a shelter for the spillover of homeless families.
Chunks of cement and plaster had been blasted off the walls of the classrooms where they slept when the second explosive was dropped.
Blood marked the entrance of the temporary home closest to the crater.
Inside, shattered glass and broken window frames speak to the force of the explosion. We were told by their neighbours that four people in the family were instantly killed.
“People were torn apart. This is inhumane,” says their neighbour Mahialdeen, whose brother and sister were injured. “We are praying that God lifts this catastrophe. We left Khartoum because of the fighting and found it here.”
Wiping a tear, he says: “It is chasing us.”
The sanctuary city held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) about 200 miles northeast of Khartoum has been hit by six drone attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since the start of the year.
These latest strikes are the most deadly.
The drones – known for targeting civilian infrastructure – hit the displacement camp twice, the nearby power station supplying the city with electricity and an empty field with four bombs in the dark, early hours of the morning. First responders have told Sky News that 12 people were killed, including at least two children.
RSF increasingly using drones to carry out attacks
Data from the conflict-monitoring organisation ACLED shows the RSF has carried out increasing numbers of drone attacks across the country.
The most targeted states have been Khartoum and North Darfur, where fighting on the ground has been fierce, as well as Atbara’s River Nile State.
The data suggests that the increase in strikes has been driven by a change in tactics following the SAF’s recapture of Khartoum in late March, with the number of strikes carried out by the RSF spiking shortly after their withdrawal from the capital.
Satellite imagery shows the RSF’s airpower has allowed it to continue to attack targets in and around Khartoum.
Nearby Wadi Seidna Airbase was targeted after the attack on Atbara, with damage visible across a large area south of its airfield.
We were given access to the remains of latest suicide drones launched at Khartoum and could not find discernible signs of commercial origin.
Drone experts told Sky News that they are self-built devices made from generic parts with no identifiable manufacturers for the components.
Read more:
Sky reporter returns to family home left in ruins
UK announces £120m aid package for Sudan
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Two years of war in Sudan
Drones sighted in South Darfur are consistent with Chinese models
High-resolution satellite images confirm the presence of drones at the RSF-held Nyala Airport.
While the total number of drones kept at this location is unknown, imagery from Planet Labs shows six on 24 April.
This is the highest number of drones observed at the airport, suggesting an increase in the RSF’s available airpower.
The location and number of drones visible in satellite imagery at Nyala Airport has varied over time, suggesting they are in active use.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Yousra Elbagir visits wartorn home in Sudan
While it is not possible to determine the exact model of drones sighted at Nyala Airport, a report published by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Lab has previously found them to be consistent with the Chinese-produced FH-95.
Analysis carried out by Sky News confirms these findings, with the measurements and visible features matching those of the CH-95 and FH-95. Both designs are produced in China.
The United Arab Emirates is widely accused of supplying Chinese drones to the RSF through South Sudan and Uganda, as well as weapons through Chad. The UAE vehemently denies these claims.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Sudanese military in presidential palace
Evidence of new airfields
Satellite imagery viewed by Sky News suggests the RSF has worked to increase its air capabilities outside of South Darfur.
In late 2024, five new airstrips appeared in West Kordofan between the contested cities of North Darfur capital Al Fashir and Khartoum.
While the purpose of these airstrips is unknown, it is clear they carry some level of military significance, having been targeted by air in April.
In high-resolution images, no aircraft can be seen. Damage is visible next to a structure that appears to be an aircraft hangar.
The rapid escalation in drone strikes is being brutally suffered on the ground.
In Atbara’s Police Hospital, we find a ward full of the injured survivors.
One of them, a three-year-old girl called Manasiq, is staring up at the ceiling in wide-eyed shock with her head wrapped in a bandage and her feet covered in dried blood.
Her aunt tells us the explosion flung her small body across the classroom shelter but she miraculously survived.
She has shrapnel in her head and clings onto her aunt as her mother is treated for her own injuries in a ward on the first floor.
In a dark room deeper in the ward, a mother sits on the edge of a hospital bed holding her young injured daughter. Her son, only slightly older, is on a smaller adjustable bed further away.
Fadwa looks forlorn and helpless. Her children were spending the night with relatives in the temporary tents when the first strike hit and killed her eight-year-old son.
His surviving sister and brother have been asking after him, but Fadwa can’t bring herself to break the news.
“What can I say? This is our fate. We fled the war in Khartoum but can’t escape the violence,” Fadwa says, staring off in the distance.
“We are condemned to this fate.”
World
‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
Eleven Thai civilians and a soldier have been killed in clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, officials have said, as long-standing tensions in disputed border areas boiled over into open conflict.
Among those killed was an eight-year-old boy, the army said in a statement.
It said most casualties occurred in Si Sa Ket province, where six people were killed after shots were fired at a fuel station.
Smoke and fire in the Kantharalak district in Thailand amid clashes between Thailand and Cambodia. Pic: Army Region 2 via Facebook/Reuters
Another 14 people have been injured in three Thai border provinces.
Thailand’s health minister Somsak Thepsuthin confirmed the fatalities to reporters, adding Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be considered war crimes.
Both countries accuse one another of starting the military clashes and have downgraded their diplomatic relations in the rapidly escalating dispute. Thailand has also sealed all land border crossings with Cambodia.
Early on Thursday, a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, according to Thailand’s army.
“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon said.
Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thai jets had dropped bombs on a road near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, saying it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.
What has caused Thailand-Cambodia border clashes?
Thai people who fled clashes take shelter in Surin province. Pic: AP
Fighting has taken place in disputed border areas
‘Civilian areas targeted’
Clashes are ongoing in at least six areas along the border, the Thai defence ministry said.
Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodian troops fired “heavy artillery” on a Thai military base on Thursday morning and also targeted civilian areas, including a hospital.
“The Royal Thai Government is prepared to intensify our self-defence measures if Cambodia persists in its armed attack and violations upon Thailand’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
A livestream video from Thailand’s side showed people, including children and the elderly, running from their homes and hiding in a concrete bunker as explosions sounded.
The clash happened in an area where the ancient Prasat Ta Muen Thom temple stands along the border between Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province.
Thai people who fled clashes in Surin province, northeastern Thailand. Pic: AP
‘Conflict not spreading’
Thailand’s acting premier said fighting must first stop before peace talks can start.
Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters there had been no declaration of war and conflict was not spreading into more provinces.
He said Cambodia had fired heavy weapons into Thailand without any specific targets, resulting in civilian deaths.
Earlier on Thursday, Cambodia downgraded diplomatic relations with Thailand to their lowest level, expelled the Thai ambassador and recalled all Cambodian staff from its embassy in Bangkok.
The day before, its neighbour withdrew its ambassador and expelled the top Cambodian diplomat in protest after five Thai soldiers were wounded in a land mine blast, one of whom lost part of a leg.
A week earlier, a land mine in a different contested area exploded and wounded three Thai soldiers, including one who lost a foot.
Relations between the southeast Asian neighbours have collapsed after a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation in a disputed border area in May.
Read more on Sky News:
UK’s ‘tough choices’
‘Man-made starvation’ in Gaza
Man ‘scarred’ by Trump max security prison
Nationalist passions on both sides have further inflamed the situation, and Thailand’s prime minister was suspended earlier this month as an investigation was opened into possible ethics violations over her handling of the border dispute.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Border disputes are longstanding issues that have caused periodic tensions between the countries. The most prominent and violent conflicts have been around the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple.
In 1962, the International Court of Justice recognised Cambodian sovereignty over the temple area.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike