At least 30 displaced civilians, including women and children, have been killed and dozens more wounded in a drone attack in southeastern Sudan.
Mahjoub Al-Sheikh, governor of Wad al-Mahi province, told Al Jazeera on Friday that a drone belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the provincial center, killing 26 women and 4 children. He called the attack "cowardly" and said the drone was launched from "inside Ethiopian territory," according to AFP.
Al Jazeera Arabic's Sudan correspondent, Wadah Al-Tahir, said the attack was the latest in a series of drone strikes targeting the Blue Nile region, this time hitting Wad al-Mahi province near the city of Damazin.
Friday's strike occurred just outside a refugee camp, near an informal gold-mining site where women earn daily wages by using chemicals and their bare hands to separate gold particles from soil extracted by men.
The latest front in the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF is the border area with Ethiopia, a country facing its own internal conflict that risks escalating.
Sudan has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of harboring RSF fighters and bases, while Ethiopia denies the accusations. According to AFP, local sources say the porous border between the two countries serves as a key supply route for the paramilitary force and its allies.
The RSF has launched an offensive toward Damazin, but the advance could put the Sudanese army in a difficult position, forcing it to defend both the Blue Nile front and the Kordofan region, where a year of drone attacks has left both sides in a stalemate.
Aid workers estimate Sudan's civil war has killed more than 200,000 people since it began in April 2023, creating one of the world's largest hunger and displacement crises. According to United Nations figures, nearly 100,000 people have been displaced in Blue Nile state this year alone.
