Students among 17 killed in RSF drone attack in Sudan’s White Nile state | Conflict news

The Sudanese Doctors Network says that “a horrendous crime represents a continuation of the violations committed by RSF.”

At least 17 people have been killed, including students, teachers and health workers, following a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) drone attack on a secondary school and health center in Sudan’s war-torn southern White Nile state, according to the Sudanese Doctors Network.

Wednesday’s attack in the village of Shukeiri also injured 10 people, according to Musa Al-Majri, director of al-Duwaim Hospital, the main medical center closest to the village.

The network stated: “This horrific crime represents a continuation of violations committed by the RSF in White Nile State. Over the past two days, several civilian facilities have been attacked, including a student residence, a power plant and several residential neighborhoods, in an escalation that reflects a continuing pattern of targeting civilians without regard to international humanitarian law, which criminalizes such acts.”

After the RSF was expelled from the capital Khartoum in March 2025 by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) it faces, the paramilitary group moved its campaign to the Kordofan region and the town of el-Fasher in North Darfur, which had been the army’s last stronghold in the vast Darfur region until it fell to the RSF in October.

Following el-Fasher’s capture, accounts emerged accusing the group of mass murder, rape, kidnapping and widespread looting, prompting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open a formal investigation into alleged “war crimes” committed by both sides in the conflict.

A recent United Nations report said the atrocities committed by RSF in el-Fasher had all the hallmarks of genocide.

While the world focuses on the US-Israel war against Iran and its repercussions with Tehran’s retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, the brutal civil war in Sudan has been going on for almost three years.

Thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in a war that has created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.

According to the latest figures from the World Food Programme, at least 21.2 million people, or 41 percent of the population, are facing high levels of acute food shortages, while 12 million people have been “forced from their homes by the conflict.”