Bodies wrapped in cloth lie on beds as mourners gather, in a photo the Darfur Network for Human Rights shared on X on October 9, 2026, saying it showed victims of the drone strike in the Abu Shandi area of Wad al-Mahi, Blue Nile, Sudan. Mereja could not independently verify where or when it was taken. (Photo: Darfur Network for Human Rights via X)
A drone strike on a displacement site in Sudan’s Blue Nile near the Ethiopian border killed at least 30 people on Friday, according to most reports.
A local governor said the drone was launched from inside Ethiopia.
The strike hit the Abu Shandi area of Wad al-Mahi locality, close to a shelter for displaced families and a water point. Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, said on Friday that eight children had been killed and 26 women seriously injured, according to preliminary information. BBC Amharic reported on Sunday that the group now puts the death toll at 41.
Other counts were lower. The Sudan Doctors Network said 31 civilians were killed and 19 injured. Ayin, a Sudanese media network, reported 30 deaths. Shahid Evidence, a platform that documents rights evidence, said in its daily brief on Saturday that reported tolls ranged from 18 to 41, and that “at least 30” was the figure cited most often. It described the strike as confirmed and the toll as disputed.
Mahgoub al-Sheikh, the governor of Wad al-Mahi, told AFP that the drone was launched from “inside Ethiopia.” AFP noted that Sudan has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of hosting Rapid Support Forces fighters and bases on its territory, and that Ethiopia has denied the accusations, though local sources told AFP the porous border is a key supply line for the paramilitary and its allies. Shahid Evidence called the claim about Ethiopia unverified and said neither side had responded. Mereja found no response from the Ethiopian Gov’t to the governor’s claim by Sunday afternoon.
The accusation follows earlier reporting. In February, Reuters reported, citing sources and satellite images, that Ethiopia had built a camp near Menge in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, about 32 kilometers from the Sudanese border, to train Rapid Support Forces fighters. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab later said it could not confirm activity by the paramilitary group at the Menge site, but reported activity consistent with military assistance to the group at an Ethiopian army base in Asosa.
AFP said a person who took part in the burials told the agency that survivors “buried 26 women and four children.” The drone hit just outside the camp, near an informal gold mining site where women earn a daily wage by clearing gold from clumps of earth with chemicals and their bare hands. Another eyewitness told AFP that the victims included “young girls who work with their families in refining the gold.”
The spokesperson of the Blue Nile regional government, Saif Al-Nasr Min Allah, blamed the Rapid Support Forces, according to Ayin. He called the attack a serious violation of humanitarian principles and international law, and said the Geneva Conventions require warring parties to tell civilians apart from fighters. Emergency Lawyers and the Sudan Doctors Network also blamed the Rapid Support Forces, and AFP reported, citing an official and eyewitnesses, that the paramilitary launched the drone.
The Sudan Founding Alliance, known as Tasis, the alliance that includes the Rapid Support Forces, blamed Egypt. It said in a statement on Friday that an Egyptian drone, launched by Egyptian technicians from the Wad al-Mahi police station, had killed more than 20 displaced people, according to Sudanese news accounts on X that shared the statement by its spokesperson, Ahmed Tugud Lissan. Mereja could not verify either side’s claim.
Mohammed Alalmy, a Sudanese multimedia journalist who describes his work as open-source investigation, wrote on X that the attack on the displaced people’s camp in Village 6 of the Abu Shandi area was carried out by the alliance of the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, and that 20 people were killed.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it was “appalled” by what it called horrifying reports, and that early information showed most of the victims were women and children. It said the area had been attacked repeatedly over recent weeks, displacing thousands of civilians. Denise Brown, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said she was shocked by the strike, according to a summary of her statement shared by Sudanese Echo. The statement said the area was under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces and that the families sheltering there had fled fighting in the Geissan and Kurmuk localities. The UN statement did not name the party responsible.
The strike came as the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces moves closer to Ethiopia. Tasis said on October 8 that its forces had captured the headquarters of the army’s 13th Infantry Brigade in Bakori and were advancing toward Ed Damazin, the state capital, according to a report shared on X. AFP said nearly 100,000 people have been displaced across Blue Nile this year, citing UN figures. On Sunday, the governor of Wad al-Mahi told Al Jazeera that a drone of the Rapid Support Forces had struck the Um Darfa hospital in the locality, according to Sudan Axis and Sudan Osint, two accounts that follow the war.
Ethiopian commentators have raised the same questions about the border. On October 8, before the strike, Piassa Tube, an account that posts about Ethiopia’s social, economic and political affairs, wrote in Amharic that the regime which calls others traitors is the same group that trains Sudanese fighters in Asosa on the orders of the Emiratis.
Rich Tedd, an open-source intelligence analyst who covers security and conflicts mainly in East Africa on the AfriMEOSINT account, reported on Sunday that the UAE was “sharply stepping up its suspicious cargo airlift to Ethiopia,” with two Boeing 747 freighters of the Kyrgyz cargo airline Aerostan flying from Al Ain in the UAE to Bole International Airport in recent hours. The same account reported seven cargo flights from Istanbul to Port Sudan since Thursday that it said were supporting the Sudanese army. The UAE denies widespread reports that it backs the Rapid Support Forces through Sudan’s neighbors, AFP said.
Since the war began in April 2023, it has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than 14 million from their homes, BBC Amharic reported.
Sources:
- BBC Amharic
- AFP (via The Daily Star)
- Al Jazeera
- Reuters (February investigation)
- Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (Asosa report)
- Emergency Lawyers on X
- Sudan Doctors Network on X
- Ayin on X
- Shahid Evidence on X
- Tasis statement as shared on X
- Mohammed Alalmy on X
- Sudanese Echo on X (Denise Brown statement)
- Tasis Bakori claim as shared on X
- Sudan Axis on X
- Sudan Osint on X
- Piassa Tube on X
- AfriMEOSINT on X (UAE cargo flights)
- AfriMEOSINT on X (Port Sudan cargo flights)
- Darfur Network for Human Rights on X (photo)