Residents say 40 killed in alleged army strike in southern Sudan
Africa
By
AFP
| Dec 01, 2025
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."
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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.
It has also torn the country apart, with the RSF controlling the entire western Darfur region and, along with the SPLM-N, parts of the south.
The southern Kordofan region, itself nearly the size of France, has seen fierce fighting as the army seeks to push the RSF away from the vital highway linking the capital Khartoum to Darfur, where the military lost its last stronghold in October.
According to United Nations figures, close to 5,000 people were displaced in November from small villages in South Kordofan state due to "heightened insecurity".
The military source said troops in the state were "repelling" RSF and SPLM-N fighters, who he said had "attacked and bombarded several villages with drones".
Anti-government forces now hold a third of the country between Darfur and Kordofan, as well as border access to all but one of Sudan's neighbours, Egypt.
SPLM-N has a historical foothold in Kordofan's Nuba Mountains, and controls areas on the border with Ethiopia further east.
Its main base in Kauda, which houses an airport, is only 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the South Sudanese border.
For most of the war, paramilitary fighters have besieged army garrisons in Kordofan's main cities, including West Kordofan state's Babanusa, which the RSF accused the military of attacking on Monday.