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A suspected drone strike by the Sudanese military hit a high school and a health center in southern Sudan on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people, most of them schoolgirls, a hospital official and medical team said.
At least 10 people were injured in the strike in Shukeiri village in White Nile, according to Dr. Musa al-Majeri, director of Douiem Hospital, the closest medical center to the town.
Al-Majeri told The Associated Press that three girls were seriously injured. Two of the girls underwent surgery at the hospital and the third was taken to the capital, Khartoum.
The Sudan Doctors Network, which follows the war, reported on the strike first, saying that the dead included two teachers and a health worker. The group said there are no soldiers in the village.
Both the medical group and al-Majeri blamed the Rapid Support Forces for the strike.
RSF did not respond to a request for comment.
“This heinous crime represents a continuation of the violations committed by the RSF in White Nile,” said Dr. Razan Al-Mahdi, a spokesman for the medical group, added that paramilitaries had attacked several public facilities in the past two days, including a student dormitory and a power station.
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The strike in Shukeiri village in White Nile state was the latest deadly incident in Sudan’s three-year conflict.
Sudan was plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF erupted into open warfare in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
The devastating civil war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to United Nations figures, but aid agencies say that is a small figure and the true number could be many times higher.
The war is centered in the Kordofan region, where deadly attacks, mostly by drones, are reported daily.
Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative in Sudan, says the two-and-a-half-year civil war has led to the highest levels of child migration in the world, with 17.3 million in dire need of aid.
The war has been marked by atrocities including mass killings, gang rapes and other crimes, which have been investigated by the International Criminal Court as possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The most recent atrocity took place in October when the RSF and its Janjweed allies overran the Darfur town of el-Fasher. The RSF’s attack there had “signs of genocide,” according to experts commissioned by the United Nations.
At least 6,000 people were killed in three days in October in el-Fasher, the UN Human Rights Office said.
