A Sudanese war monitor has accused the military of killing hundreds of people in an airstrike on a market in the western Darfur region of the country.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents abuses by both sides in Sudan’s civil war that began in April 2023, described the bombing of Tur’rah market as a “horrific massacre” that also left hundreds more injured.
Videos shared on social media—some by the army’s rival, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that controls much of Darfur—showed the burned remains of market stalls and bodies disfigured beyond recognition.
A military spokesperson denied targeting civilians, stating that only legitimate hostile targets were attacked.
Both the Sudanese armed forces and RSF have been repeatedly accused of shelling civilian areas.
While the RSF has deployed drones in Darfur, the army possesses warplanes and regularly targets RSF positions across the region.
The BBC has not been able to confirm the death toll or the exact date of the attack on the market, located about 35 km (21 miles) north of the army-held city of el-Fasher.
A Darfur activist group, the Darfur Initiative for Justice and Peace, said the bombing occurred on Monday and described it as the “deadliest single bombing since the beginning of the war.”
Civilian casualties from bombing and shelling have surged in recent months as the fighting in Sudan’s brutal civil conflict escalates.
Since the war started, around 12 million Sudanese people have fled their homes—equivalent to the entire populations of Belgium or Tunisia.
Famine has taken hold, and widespread starvation has been reported, with over half of the country facing “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to the UN.
Estimates suggest at least 150,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
The RSF has denied allegations of committing genocide in Darfur, including the mass killing of civilians and the rape of non-Arab women as part of an “ethnic cleansing” campaign.
The UN has declared Sudan the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
