ABYEI — A drone strike on a crowded market in the disputed Abyei region has killed at least 153 people, according to the region's caretaker information minister, Yohana Akol Ngor, who said the toll rose from an initial count of 73 as rescue work continued through Tuesday.
Ngor blamed Sudan's armed forces for Monday's strike and said around 8,000 people had been displaced by the bombing. A military source told the BBC the army had carried out the attack, saying the market served as a fuel supply site for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the group the army has been fighting since April 2023. Satellite images verified by the BBC show extensive burnt buildings at the market site.
The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it received more than 20 patients at Ameth Bek Hospital in Abyei town, including several critical cases and patients with burns. South Sudan's foreign ministry summoned Sudan's ambassador to protest the strike.
The Abyei attack was part of a wider wave of drone strikes over two days that monitoring groups say killed more than 300 people in total, including mourners hit in West Kordofan. Abyei, an oil-rich region claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, has become one of the deadliest fronts in a war that has repeatedly struck civilian markets and gatherings far from the main front lines.
