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Death toll from drone strike on Abyei market rises to 153 as South Sudan blames Sudan's army
Officials in the disputed border region say bodies were buried in two mass graves and some people are still missing after Monday's strike on Amiet market.
Key points
- Abyei officials said 153 people were killed in the drone strike on Amiet market.
- South Sudan summoned Sudan's ambassador and blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces.
- About 8,000 people have fled the area, according to local officials.
The number of people killed in a drone strike on a crowded market in Abyei, the disputed territory on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, has risen to 153, officials said on Wednesday, more than double the first count.
“The total number of people who died as a result of the drone attacks is 153,” said Yohana Akol Ngor, the region’s caretaker information minister. “But there are people who are missing.” He said the dead included Sudanese, South Sudanese and Somali nationals and had been buried in two mass graves, one on each side of the market. Some bodies were burned, and fires slowed the search for others.
The strike hit Amiet market, about 10 km north of Abyei town, on Monday. Ngor said 30 people were in hospital, some in a critical condition, and that about 8,000 people had fled. The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said it was treating more than 20 wounded, some with burns.
Who is blamed
Ngor blamed Sudan’s army. South Sudan’s government said it had learnt “with grave concern of the drone attack carried out by the Sudanese Armed Forces against Amiet Market” and summoned Sudan’s ambassador in Juba to lodge a protest. It called on Sudan “to refrain from any actions that endanger civilian lives and property”.
Sudan’s army and its rival in the civil war, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), did not immediately comment. Officials in the army-backed government have said the RSF is active in parts of Abyei, which Ngor denied. Diplomatic and aid sources have said the strike hit a fuel depot in the market that the RSF had used for supplies. One witness said he heard five large explosions and saw no fighters there.
A war spilling over
UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the drone attacks in Abyei on Tuesday. His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said the UN remained alarmed by “the relentless drone attacks across Sudan”, which he said were damaging critical infrastructure and hitting communities after more than three years of war. The UN says attacks in recent days have killed more than 250 people.
Sudan’s army and the RSF have been fighting since 2023. Abyei, disputed between Sudan and South Sudan and home to a UN peacekeeping force, has become a transit route for RSF supplies, analysts say.