KHARTOUM, Sudan – At least 79 civilians, among them 43 children, were killed and 38 others seriously injured when Rapid Support Forces (RSF)-operated drones struck the town of Kalogi in South Kordofan state on Thursday, Sudanese authorities announced on Friday.
The South Kordofan state government said four suicide drones fired missiles into a kindergarten, a hospital, and crowded residential neighbourhoods in the centre of the city. Four women were among the dead. Rescue teams worked through the night pulling bodies from the rubble, raising the initial death toll of eight – six children and one teacher inside the Ghadeer Kindergarten – to the final count of 79.
Eyewitnesses described horrific scenes: young children torn apart while playing, patients killed on hospital beds, and entire families wiped out in seconds by secondary explosions. The state government called the attack a “heinous crime” carried out by the RSF in coordination with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N al-Hilu faction), and demanded that the international community designate the RSF a terrorist organisation and hold its leaders accountable for what it described as systematic inhumane crimes.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued an immediate and forceful condemnation, calling the strikes “a horrific violation of children’s rights.” UNICEF Representative in Sudan Sheldon Yett said more than ten of the children killed were aged between five and seven.
“Children should never pay the price of conflict,” Yett declared. “The killing and maiming of children, and attacks on schools and hospitals, are grave violations of children’s rights. We urge all parties to stop these attacks immediately and allow safe, unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to reach those in desperate need.”
UNICEF noted that the Kalogi massacre occurred amid a sharp deterioration in security across North and South Kordofan since early November, with heavy fighting driving widespread displacement and deepening an already catastrophic humanitarian situation. More than 41,000 people have fled violence in the two states over the past month alone.
Neither the RSF nor the SPLM-N al-Hilu faction has commented on the attack.
The three Kordofan states have become one of the most active fronts in Sudan’s 20-month civil war. The RSF now controls all five Darfur states except for some northern pockets of North Darfur still held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The army, in turn, retains control of most of the remaining 13 states in the south, north, east, and centre, including the capital Khartoum.
The war that erupted on 15 April 2023 between the SAF and the RSF – once allies under the former regime of Omar al-Bashir – has killed at least 40,000 people according to World Health Organization figures, though independent estimates range far higher when including deaths from starvation and disease. More than 12 million people have been displaced, making Sudan home to the world’s largest displacement and child displacement crises. Over 25 million Sudanese – half the population – face acute food insecurity, with famine already confirmed in parts of Darfur and looming in Kordofan.
Hospitals and schools have been repeatedly targeted by both sides. Human rights organisations have documented thousands of civilian deaths from airstrikes, drone attacks, artillery shelling, and ground assaults. Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war on a massive scale, particularly in Darfur, while cholera, measles, and mpox outbreaks rage through overcrowded camps.
The Kalogi strike is the latest in a string of deadly incidents in the region. In recent weeks, RSF advances toward the strategic town of Babanusa and SAF airstrikes on Nyala in South Darfur have trapped tens of thousands of civilians in siege-like conditions, with escape routes mined and humanitarian convoys routinely attacked or looted.
Survivors in Kalogi spoke of overwhelming grief and anger. One father, searching the ruins of the kindergarten for his missing daughter, told reporters: “They bombed children who were learning the alphabet. What kind of war is this?”
As night fell on Friday, funeral processions wound through the town while medical workers, overwhelmed and short of blood and medicines, struggled to treat the wounded. With winter approaching and food stocks running out across South Kordofan, aid agencies warn that without an immediate ceasefire and massive influx of humanitarian assistance, many more lives – especially children’s – will be lost in the coming weeks.
The people of Kalogi, like millions across Sudan, are still waiting for the guns and drones to fall silent.
