Nyala market strike leaves dozens dead as casualty figures diverge

Drone strikes on a market and a residential neighbourhood in Nyala on Monday killed dozens of people, according to reports cited by the UN on Wednesday. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the hospital it supports in the South Darfur city received 36 bodies and treated more than 150 wounded patients. The total number killed, and how many were civilians or fighters, remain unsettled.

MSF placed the market strike at about 8pm local time on 26 October in western Nyala. Radio Tamazuj identified the site as Tanqong market in the Dumaya neighbourhood. The hospital figures count people brought in for treatment or after death; they are not a final tally for the two strike sites. MSF said 21 of the 36 dead had been wearing civilian clothing. Its project coordinator, Dale Koninckx, said staff treated people with shrapnel wounds and severe burns, including women and children.

The health minister of the parallel administration aligned with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) told Radio Tamazuj that 102 civilians had been killed at the market and 113 wounded. Radio Dabanga subsequently reported a higher tally from the same administration: 188 dead and 356 wounded, which it said was based on reports from health facilities and medical teams. These are successive figures from one administration, not separate groups of victims. The Associated Press reported a lower estimate from Sudan Doctors Network of at least 21 dead and more than 40 injured; the group said security restrictions had hampered its efforts to verify victims’ identities.

Two witnesses interviewed by AP described fighters killed at or near the market as well as civilian food vendors. Their accounts challenge the assertion that everyone in the administration’s initial death toll was a civilian, but do not establish the status of each person killed. A rights group told Radio Tamazuj it had documented 14 civilian deaths at the market.

MSF and the RSF-aligned administration attributed the market strike to Sudan’s army. A spokesperson for forces fighting alongside the army claimed a targeted airstrike on a camp west of Nyala had killed more than 150 militia recruits. That claim does not establish whether the camp was one of the two sites described by the UN, whose spokesperson did not identify an attacker.

The strikes come amid a wider wave of drone attacks discussed at the UN briefing. MSF said another Nyala market strike on 16 October killed at least four people; strikes on a market and another site in Abyei followed on 19 October, with responsibility disputed. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric called for an immediate end to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure across Sudan.