The head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday that the death toll from drone strikes on a kindergarten and other sites in Sudan’s Kordofan state last week is now at 114 people killed, including 63 children. WHO said there were three separate drone strikes on Kagoli last Thursday. The first targeted the kindergarten, and the subsequent strikes targeted paramedics as they were transporting the survivors to a hospital.
The death toll was not immediately clear at the time, in part due to communications outages. Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, the director of the WHO, said on X that the organisation “deplores these senseless attacks on civilians and health facilities, and calls again for an end to the violence, and increased access to humanitarian aid, including health.”
The Sudan Doctors’ Network and Emergency Lawyers, groups that track violence against civilians in Sudan, blamed the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, also known as the RSF, for the strikes. In a statement Saturday, Emergency Lawyers called the attack “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, especially children, and vital civilian infrastructure.”
The strikes come amid a two-year war between the RSF and the Sudanese military. More than 40,000 people have been killed to date, according to the World Health Organisation, and 12 million displaced. However, aid groups warn that the true death toll is likely far higher. The battle is now concentrating on the oil-rich Kordofan region, after the RSF took over the last military stronghold, el-Fasher, in Darfur, in western Sudan.
The takeover of el-Fasher by the RSF has been marred by violence. There have been reports of executions of civilians, rapes and sexual assaults, and other atrocities. Over 100,000 people have fled since the takeover, according to the UN Migration agency. The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, warned last week that Kordofan could face new atrocities like those in el-Fasher.
The humanitarian situation in the Kordofan region is worsening as famine is also spreading after more than two years of the devastating war. Famine was declared last month in the capital of South Kordofan, Kadugli. Dilling, also in South Kordofan, has reportedly experienced the same hunger conditions as Kadugli.
