Sudanese paramilitary forces bombed a kindergarten and the hospital where victims were brought for treatment in southern Sudan on Thursday, killing at least 50 people, including 33 children.
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out three drone strikes in the town of Kalogi, in South Kordofan, officials say. The paramilitary reportedly struck the school twice, the second time to kill civilians who had gathered to aid the wounded, and then struck the hospital treating the victims, Al Jazeera reports, citing sources from the government-aligned military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
The death toll may be far higher. A local official told Al Jazeera that at least 116 people were killed. Forty-six of those killed were children, the official said. According to UNICEF, many of the victims were aged between 5 and 7 years old.
The UN Secretary-General is “appalled” by the strikes, spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement, and called on states to take action to stop further violence in Sudan. Sheldon Yett, UNICEF’s Sudan representative, said: “Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights.”
The UN has reported that a humanitarian convoy carrying food supplies to North Darfur, including a World Food Programme truck, was also hit in an aerial strike on Thursday. Last week, RSF alleged that SAF targeted a border town that serves as a crucial humanitarian aid crossing near Chad in a bombing.
The strikes come amid warnings that South Kordofan may become “another el-Fasher,” as UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Thursday. Last month, starvation officials confirmed a famine in South Kordofan’s capital, Kadugli, on top of the famine already declared in el-Fasher, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
RSF has waged genocidal violence and mass killings in el-Fasher, which it took over in late October. UN officials have estimated that tens of thousands of people have been slaughtered in the city in the past three weeks alone.
The Guardian reported on Friday that British members of Parliament have said that officials say their “low estimate” is that 60,000 people have been killed. Meanwhile, up to 150,000 residents of el-Fasher are unaccounted for amid reports of the RSF’s massacres.
Satellite evidence shows the city resembles a “slaughterhouse,” Yale University researchers say. Once-busy markets from the city that formerly had a population of 1.5 million are now empty.
Since Sudan’s horrific civil war and genocide began in April 2023, as many as or more than 400,000 people have been killed.
In response to Thursday’s strikes, some have reupped calls for the U.S. to stop sending weapons to the United Arab Emirates, which provides the RSF with its arms arsenal.
“The RSF just attacked a kindergarten, killing at least 33 children in Sudan. Meanwhile, the Trump Admin. continues to sell arms to the UAE, who are aiding these atrocities,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) on social media. “Imagine if [Donald] Trump spent as much time trying to stop the killing, as he did getting the UAE to invest in his crypto coin.”
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