Pamphlets V9 card over an archive photograph of a Nyala market, headline: Drone Strike Hits Nyala Market — More Than 100 Reported Killed, Hospitals Overwhelmed

Sudan’s Drone War Turns a Nyala Market Into a Mass Grave

Amara Sankara

6 hours ago

3 min read

A drone struck a crowded market in Nyala, South Darfur, on Monday evening and turned one of the city’s essential food hubs into a field of burned bodies and shattered stalls. Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group documenting the war, said more than 100 people were killed and 113 wounded. Médecins Sans Frontières independently confirmed that Nyala Teaching Hospital had received 36 bodies and treated more than 150 wounded patients.

The gap between those figures reflects the chaos of a city at war, not a minor disagreement. Emergency Lawyers said many of the victims were women and children. MSF reported that 21 of the bodies brought to the hospital wore civilian clothing. Medical teams treated shrapnel wounds, severe burns and blood loss through the night while residents carried victims to the hospital in tuk-tuks and donkey carts.

The strike hit at about 8 p.m. local time on October 26, according to MSF. A second strike hit a civilian neighborhood. Both Emergency Lawyers and MSF attributed the attack to the Sudanese Armed Forces. The army had not issued a public response to the allegations when the reports appeared, and the full death toll remained impossible to verify independently.

Archive photograph of a market street and post office in Nyala, South Darfur — ARCHIVE — Market street and post office in Nyala, South Darfur, photographed June 12, 2012. Leovdvxxx / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. This image does not depict the October 26, 2026 strike.

Markets Have Become Battlefields

Nyala sits under the control of the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary organization fighting Sudan’s army since April 2023. That military fact does not make a crowded market a lawful target. International humanitarian law requires combatants to distinguish fighters from civilians and to avoid attacks expected to cause disproportionate civilian harm.

MSF project coordinator Dale Koninckx described patients arriving with “shrapnel injuries, blood on their faces, and severe burns.” He asked the question that should haunt every commander directing this war: “Why are markets being targeted? The places where people need to access food, where a lot of civilians gather?”

Nyala’s markets are not symbolic scenery. They are part of the city’s food system, where families buy onions, grain, fruit and daily necessities. Destroying them kills immediately and then keeps killing by driving up prices, cutting supplies and pushing already hungry households closer to catastrophe. A similar strike hit Nyala’s livestock market on October 16. MSF confirmed at least four deaths in that attack.

Two Armies, One Civilian Catastrophe

The Nyala massacre arrived as the RSF intensified its own drone campaign against electricity infrastructure across army-held Sudan. Reuters reported that strikes knocked out power stations in Sennar, Al Qadarif, White Nile and Gezira, threatening the national grid. Another attack on a major substation left much of Khartoum without power, forcing hospitals and bakeries onto generators and disrupting water supplies.

This is the logic now governing Sudan’s war: each side answers attacks on civilian life with a new claim of military necessity. The army bombs an RSF-held city. The RSF attacks power systems serving millions under army control. Civilians pay for every escalation, while generals preserve their command structures and foreign patrons continue to feed the conflict.

The country already faces the world’s largest humanitarian emergency. The United Nations estimates that roughly 34 million people need assistance. AP reported that 825,000 children face acute malnutrition, while food-security monitors warn that parts of Darfur and Kordofan are sliding toward famine.

Emergency Lawyers called for an independent investigation. That demand must include the chain of command, the weapons used and the foreign supply networks that make long-range drone warfare possible. Sudan does not need another statement expressing concern after the bodies are buried. It needs enforceable protection for markets, hospitals, water systems and power stations—and accountability for commanders on both sides who turn civilian survival into a weapon.

The reported toll in Nyala may rise. The essential fact is already clear: a market full of people buying food was struck, hospitals were overwhelmed, and another civilian community was forced to count the dead while Sudan’s rival military elites continued their struggle for power.