The Sudanese military is accused of carrying out an airstrike on a marketplace in the western region of Darfur, reportedly killing more than 100 people.
The rights group Emergency Lawyers described the bombing in the town of Kabkabiya on Monday, the weekly market day, as a “horrific massacre”.
Clashes between the army and its former ally, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have intensified in several parts of Sudan in recent weeks.
Both sides deny committing war crimes during their 19-month power struggle, which has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and driven more than 11 million people from their homes.
According to Emergency Lawyers, the airstrike took place as residents of nearby villages came to shop in Kabkabiya, about 180 km west of el-Fasher, the only town in Darfur still under military control and which has been under siege since April.
“This attack on civilians on market day is a blatant violation of international law,” Emergency Lawyers said, adding that hundreds of people were also injured in the airstrike.
The group has also condemned the RSF for its indiscriminate shelling of Omdurman, the city across the Nile River from the capital Khartoum.
Emergency lawyers said 14 people were killed Tuesday after a grenade hit a bus.
It also condemned the RSF for using civilian infrastructure, such as gas stations, for military purposes.
On Sunday, an airstrike hit a gas station in an RSF-controlled area of Khartoum, killing at least 28 people.
A volunteer group, the South Belt Emergency Response Room, said 37 people were also injured.
The army has fighter jets, but denies deliberately targeting civilians.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United Nations and the African Union to urgently send troops to Sudan to protect civilians.
In her latest report on atrocities in Sudan, she accuses the RSF and allied Arab militias of killing dozens of civilians – and wounding, raping and kidnapping many others – in waves of attacks in South Kordofan state from December 2023 to March 2024 .
The rights group has previously documented similar abuses as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing in West Darfur.
“The abuse of civilians by the Rapid Support Forces in South Kordofan is emblematic of the ongoing atrocities across Sudan,” said HRW researcher Jean-Baptiste Gallopin.
“These new findings underline the urgent need to deploy a mission to protect civilians in Sudan.”
In May, US special envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello said some estimates suggested as many as 150,000 people had been killed in the conflict.
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