Rights group Emergency Lawyers said the attack hit civilians gathered for local court hearings, wounding several others during the afternoon strike.

“SAF drones targeted the Customary Court in the village of al-Zawiya Ghara,  Garra al-ZawayaAl-Serief locality, North Darfur State,” the group wrote on social media, “killing at least 35 people and injuring others. The victims were inside the court building and in its immediate surroundings when the attack occurred.”

The Emergency Lawyers has documented abuses by both the army and its rival paramilitaries, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) throughout the three-year conflict, which started on 15 April 2023.

Sudan: Three years of war and new reports of meddling by Ethiopia

Deliberate attack

The group added the strike hit the court in the village of al-Zawiya Ghara at around 1:00pm local time (11:00 GMT).

The village is under the control of the RSF.
“The court session was being held under a tree with the participation of local community leaders,” a witness from the area told French news agency AFP on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

Among those killed were “four tribal leaders and two RSF commanders”, the witness added.

The RSF’s self-declared government condemned the attack as “a horrific crime”, saying 37 people had been killed and 50 others wounded.

There was no immediate response from the army.

Horrific crimes in Darfur

Al-Zawiya lies near the town of Kabkabiya in North Darfur, about 150 kilometres west of El-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in Darfur before it was captured by the RSF in a bloody offensive last October.

UN investigators have said violence linked to the RSF’s siege and capture of El-Fasher bears “the hallmarks of genocide“.

Following its takeover of the city, the RSF, which emerged from the Janjaweed militia accused of atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s, consolidated control over much of the region.

Since the El-Fasher campaign, both sides have increasingly relied on drone warfare. According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes during the first five months of this year.

UN warns of an ‘imminent risk of mass atrocities’ in Sudan’s Kordofan

Last week, after losing control of a key highway linking the capital Khartoum and the city of El-Obeid in Kordofan, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo released a video message in which he told his fighters to consider themselves “unleashed” in their war against the army.

El-Obeid, the largest city in the southern Kordofan region, has come under intense drone attacks in recent weeks, prompting the UN to issue a “red alert” over the unfolding “catastrophe” there, where the RSF has sought to reimpose a blockade and is feared to be preparing a ground offensive.

The UN has repeatedly warned that RSF advances in El-Obeid and the wider Kordofan region could lead to mass atrocities.

The war between Daglo’s RSF and his former ally, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, but the RSF has been particularly accused of systematic sexual violence, looting and mass atrocities

 (with AFP)