The death toll from Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on a kindergarten and other sites in the city of Kalogi in South Kordofan state has risen to about 47 people – mostly children – with about 50 others injured, two military sources in the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have told media.
According to the sources, the RSF attacked the kindergarten on Thursday and then returned to target civilians who had gathered to offer assistance amid the carnage. The city’s hospital and a government building were also bombed.
The sources indicated that this toll is not yet final, due to the serious injuries sustained by some of those who were treated.
On Thursday, the Sudan Doctors Network initially reported that at least nine people were killed, including four children and two women, in “deliberate suicide-drone attacks carried out in Kalogi town” carried out by the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (al-Hilou), on the kindergarten and several civilian facilities.
“This attack constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and is a continuation of the targeting of civilians and vital infrastructure,” they added.
It’s the latest instance of RSF atrocities against civilians in the ongoing brutal civil war, now deep into its third year, pitting the SAF against the paramilitary RSF. The SAF has also been accused of committing atrocities in the war.
On Thursday, the United Nations warned that the Kordofan region of Sudan could face another wave of mass atrocities as fierce fighting between rival armed forces threatens a humanitarian catastrophe.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that history was “repeating itself” in Kordofan following last month’s fall of el-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, where warnings of impending violence were largely ignored by the international community before widespread killings occurred.
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