Sudan's army just bombed a crowded market and the toll keeps climbing
1 hour ago · 29 October 2026Share
A busy market in Darfur showing the type of civilian commercial setting that was struck. File photo. COSV · CC BY-SA 3.0
A drone just hit a packed market in Nyala. That's the capital of South Darfur, in Sudan.
More than 100 people are dead. Over 150 are wounded. Rights groups are calling it the deadliest single attack of Sudan's entire civil war.
It happened three days ago, around 8pm, in the Dumaya neighbourhood. A second strike hit a nearby residential area straight after.
So who did it? Médecins Sans Frontières says the Sudanese Armed Forces carried out the strike. MSF supports the local hospital, Nyala Teaching Hospital, and that hospital took in 36 bodies. 21 of them were in civilian clothing. Medical teams treated more than 150 wounded people in the emergency room alone.
But here's the thing. Nobody agrees on the number.
Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, says over 100 dead and 113 wounded. The Tasees health ministry, which is aligned with the Rapid Support Forces who control Nyala, says it's far worse: 188 killed, 356 injured. And an early statement from the Sudan Doctors Network said just 21 dead, and blamed shelling, not a drone. That figure has already been overtaken by the others.
None of these numbers has been independently checked. Access to Nyala is limited right now. And the search isn't even over. Mubarak Bekheit, an aid worker in Darfur, says many people are still missing, and some bodies haven't even been recovered from homes in the area.
So who was actually at the market? Witnesses gave the Associated Press two different stories.
One vendor, who sells cigarettes, said hundreds of Rapid Support Forces fighters had gathered there that evening. He said the strike killed dozens of fighters, along with women who were selling food.
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A suburban area on the outskirts of Nyala in South Darfur, Sudan. File photo. Vincent Vega · CC BY-SA 4.0
A second witness described a massive explosion. He said it killed many fighters too — and around 14 civilians, mostly women selling tea and food, also died.
Then there's Mohamed Didan. He speaks for the Special Operations Forces, who fight alongside the Sudanese army. He posted on Facebook that more than 150 "militia recruits" were killed at the Dumaya camp. He called it a precise and targeted air strike.
That's someone from the attacking side saying this was a military target. The aid groups and rights groups on the ground are saying something very different — a civilian market, hit with no warning.
Dale Koninckx runs MSF's operation in Nyala. He said people were carried to hospital in tuk-tuks and donkey carts. MSF put out a statement too. It says all parties to the war must protect civilians, and that markets, homes and key civilian infrastructure are not targets.
The Sudan Liberation Movement, a rebel group, says five members of one family linked to the movement died in the strike. South Darfur's civilian administration has condemned the attack and is calling for an international investigation. The Sudanese military itself has said nothing about this specific strike.
And this isn't the first time. A strike on Nyala's livestock market, two weeks ago, killed at least four people. The UN Human Rights Office recorded more than 306 deaths from drone strikes across Sudan in just the first three weeks of October. The UN now says drones are the leading cause of civilian deaths in this war. And in RSF-held Nyala, the share of children being treated for severe malnutrition more than doubled this year, from 5 to 11 per cent, according to UN figures.
Sudan's civil war has been running since April 2023. It's the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces. Both sides use drones. The Rapid Support Forces have recently hit electricity infrastructure in several other Sudanese states. Nyala itself is held by the Rapid Support Forces — which is exactly why MSF and the Tasees administration both point the finger at the Sudanese Armed Forces for this strike.
So what don't we know? The real death toll. The real mix of fighters and civilians among the dead. And whether this strike was aimed at the market itself, or at a camp nearby. Four different casualty counts. No outside verification. Not yet.
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