PORT SUDAN (Sudan): At least 40 people were killed in southern Sudan, two people who took part in the burials said Monday, in a strike that paramilitaries and a human rights group blamed on the army.
The Rapid Support Forces and their ally in the southern Kordofan region, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, accused the army of striking the village of Komo on Saturday.
The Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group that documents atrocities on both sides of Sudan’s 31-month war, said “an army air strike” targeted the village’s nursing school, “killing dozens of students”.
“We heard that a plane bombed Komo and we rushed over because my cousins are there,” Kafi Kalu told AFP from the neighbouring village of Heiban, using a satellite internet connection to circumvent a communications blackout.
“I saw the nursing school was on fire, people were trying to put it out and bury everyone. It took a long time, there were 40 burials.”
Another resident of Heiban, Tih Issa, said: “We went to help dig. There was so much death, we dug more than 40 graves.”
A Sudanese military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the army “does not bomb civilians or target civilian infrastructure”.
Since the war began in April 2023, the military has been accused of doing both, with strikes attributed to it killing dozens at a time in paramilitary-controlled areas.
The conflict has so far killed tens of thousands, displaced 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.