At least five children were killed and two injured in a Monday drone attack on a market in Nyala, South Darfur, UNICEF said on 29 October, as conflicting reports emerged over the wider toll and scope of the strikes.
UNICEF said the children—three boys and two girls aged between seven and 14—were among those affected. It did not give a total casualty figure for the attack. The agency said more than 400 children had been reported killed or injured in Sudan between January and September, with armed drone attacks accounting for a significant share. UN News reported UNICEF’s account.
The wider casualty picture remains unsettled. Al Jazeera reported that Emergency Lawyers, a rights group, put the toll from Monday’s attacks at more than 100 dead and 113 wounded. The Sudan Doctors Network instead preliminarily reported 21 dead and more than 40 wounded, while citing access restrictions and ongoing military operations that impeded verification. Al Jazeera said the figures could not be independently confirmed. Its report documented the competing accounts.
The key scope question is whether the strikes hit only a civilian market or also targeted Rapid Support Forces personnel gathered there. Witnesses cited by Al Jazeera said RSF fighters were present alongside civilian vendors, while a spokesperson for forces fighting with Sudan’s army described the operation as a targeted strike that killed more than 150 militia recruits. Doctors Without Borders said a hospital it supports received 36 bodies, including 21 people wearing civilian clothing, and treated more than 150 wounded, according to the report. Those accounts are claims reported by Al Jazeera, not independently verified findings.
The evidence therefore supports a narrower conclusion: children and other civilians were among the reported victims of strikes in Nyala, the de facto capital of the RSF, but it does not establish a settled overall toll, whether all casualties came from one strike or multiple strikes, or which force carried out the attack. The competing accounts also leave unresolved whether the market was deliberately targeted, a disputed point central to assessing the incident’s security and civilian-protection implications.