Drone Strike on Abyei Market Kills 53 as Sudan War Widens

A Sudanese army drone strike killed 53 people and wounded at least 27 at Amiet market in the disputed Abyei district, local authorities said Tuesday. The strike took place Monday. Authorities accused the army of firing 22 munitions.

Women, children, older people and local merchants were among the dead and wounded, according to the authorities. The casualties also included members of the host Ngok Dinka community, South Sudanese returnees and Sudanese refugees seeking sanctuary from the regional conflict. People who fled one war found another.

The Strategic Picture

South Sudan's Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the Sudanese ambassador over the strike and condemned it "in the strongest terms possible." The ministry accused the Sudanese army of hitting multiple locations within the market. By its own description, the market serves as a transit point for goods bound for areas controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). That detail matters. It points to the logic behind the targeting: supply lines feeding one side of a war fought by two armed forces that answer to no one.

The ground remains contested. Both Sudan and South Sudan claim Abyei; the two countries separated in 2011 after decades of conflict. Fifteen years later, the district's status remains unresolved. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a splinter group from the organization that fought for Juba's independence, controls parts of it. The SPLM-N has split into two factions, and each supports an opposing side in Sudan's war. In Abyei, rival coalitions from a larger war overlap on one patch of disputed land.

A Wave of Strikes

Abyei was one of several sites hit. Strikes killed more than 100 people across Sudan between Sunday and Monday, amid a war between the Sudanese army and the RSF that began in April 2023. Three years in, multiple outside powers have fuelled the fighting, which has caused one of the world's worst humanitarian crises and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The deadliest strike in the recent wave came Sunday evening near a market in al-Dibab town in West Kordofan, a southwestern state under RSF control. Residents and medical workers said a drone hit a transport hub where villagers had gathered after market day to find rides home. It killed 80 people.

Ahmed Abakar Wadi, a resident who helped bury victims, told AFP at least 50 bodies were recovered at the scene, including his brother's. Another 47 wounded people went to nearby al-Mujlad, where 30 later died, according to a medical source. "The drone struck once, and then came back 10 minutes later and struck again," Wadi told AFP.

The RSF's self-declared administration, Tasis, and Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers accused the army of carrying out the al-Dibab attack. The military had not commented. The strike ranks among the deadliest single attacks in Kordofan, an oil-rich region linking western and eastern Sudan where the army and RSF are fighting for territory.

The Toll From the Skies

Strikes also hit Nyala, the RSF stronghold in South Darfur, and Khartoum, the army-controlled capital. Neither side's territory is spared. The United Nations said drone attacks across Sudan killed more than 1,100 people during the first half of 2026.

The pattern is hard to miss. Cheap armed drones now let both sides hit markets, transport hubs and cities far from any front line. The al-Dibab witness account describes a second pass ten minutes after the first, catching people who rush to help. Meanwhile, the blame game has begun: Tasis and Emergency Lawyers accuse the army over al-Dibab, the military is silent, and South Sudan has named the army over Amiet.

Why This Matters: Sudan's war has stopped respecting borders and boundaries. A strike in Abyei, claimed by both Khartoum and Juba, draws South Sudan into a confrontation with a Sudanese army after it summoned the ambassador. The SPLM-N's split, with each faction backing an opposing side, shows how a conflict between two armed forces can pull in third parties and reopen questions left unresolved by the 2011 separation. Multiple outside powers are fuelling the fighting, and no single party can end it. The security lesson is plain: when armed movements and unsettled borders sit on top of one another, civilians in transit markets and refugee communities pay first. The warning signs for the wider region are visible in the figures: more than 1,100 drone deaths in six months, and more than 100 killed in two days.