By Micah Jonah
February 17, 2026
At least 28 people have been killed, dozens injured after drone-fired missiles struck a busy market in central Sudan’s Kordofan region, a rights group reported on Monday.
Emergency Lawyers, which monitors attacks on civilians, said the bombing targeted al-Safiya market in the town of Sodari, North Kordofan state, on Sunday, when the market was crowded with women, children, and the elderly.
“The repeated use of drones to hit populated areas show a grave disregard for civilian lives, signals a dangerous escalation,” the group said in a statement, calling for an immediate halt to drone attacks by both sides of the conflict.
Sodari, a remote trading town, 230km northwest of North Kordofan’s capital el-Obeid, has become one of the fiercest frontlines in Sudan’s three-year-old war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The Kordofan region, linking the RSF-controlled Darfur in the west to the army-held central corridor towards Khartoum, has seen a surge in deadly drone strikes as both sides vie for control of the country’s strategic east-west axis.
Emergency Lawyers said the drones that struck the market belonged to the army, but two military officials denied targeting civilians, insisting the army does not strike civilian infrastructure.
This attack comes a week after a drone strike near Rahad killed at least 24 people, including eight children, a day after a World Food Programme convoy was hit.
Since fighting erupted in April 2023, at least 40,000 people have been killed and 12 million displaced, according to the World Health Organization. Aid groups warn the actual death toll could be much higher due to restricted access to remote conflict zones.
The United Nations has labelled Kordofan “volatile and a focus of hostilities” as both warring sides commit atrocities. A recent UN report said over 6,000 people were killed in three days during RSF attacks in Darfur in October 2025, some of which may amount to war crimes.
The ongoing war has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, has effectively divided Sudan, with the army controlling the centre, north, and east, and the RSF holding the west and parts of the south.
