What happened
A drone strike hit al-Dibab, a town in West Kordofan in southern Sudan, on Sunday evening, 18 October, according to a medical source and a witness interviewed by AFP. The attack struck near a market, where people had gathered to board trucks home after trading ended. Around 80 people were killed, most of them civilians who had been waiting for transport. The witness said he had helped bury 50 people, including his own brother. He told AFP the attack came in two phases about ten minutes apart at a crossing point where people gather to return to their villages.
Casualties and injuries
Another 47 wounded people were moved to a neighbouring town, which Italian reports name as Al-Mujlad, and a medical source said 30 of them later died of their injuries. These figures were reported on Monday, 19 October, and the toll may still change as more information emerges. The figures reported so far are set out in the chart below.
- Reported dead, per medical source and witness
- 80 people
- Bodies buried by witness
- 50 people
- Wounded moved to neighbouring town
- 47 people
- Died of wounds in neighbouring town
- 30 people
Data from the article text
There are no accurate figures for the war as a whole. Aid workers estimate that more than 200,000 people have been killed since it began, and that more than 12 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes. The UN, citing its own data, puts the number of people forced to leave their homes at about 14 million.
A second strike near Khartoum
A separate drone attack near Khartoum airport killed four people, including three children aged two to six, a medical source said. A morgue source described four bodies, three of them children and one a man, brought in after a drone strike on a house in the Nasser Extension district, just east of the airport, on the morning of Monday, 19 October. An army source said its air defences had shot down drones launched by the RSF paramilitaries that were targeting the airport and the surrounding area.
Blame and control
Al-Dibab is held by the RSF, and the administration the militia has set up blamed government troops for the strike. The RSF's political arm, the Tasis coalition, also accused the army of responsibility. Both sides use drones regularly, according to the reports. A drone strike in Nyala earlier that weekend also killed dozens, and it too was attributed to the government army.
The wider war
The conflict between the army and the RSF began in April 2023. The UN says drones are now the most common cause of civilian deaths in the war and calls it the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Estimates of the death toll differ widely. Aid workers put it above 200,000, while a 2025 New York Times estimate ranged from several tens of thousands to more than 100,000 people.