Tragedy in Sudan: Drone Strike Kills at Least 30 at Blue Nile Displacement Site

ED DAMAZIN, Sudan — A devastating drone strike targeted a gathering of displaced civilians in Sudan’s southeastern Blue Nile region on Friday, October 9, 2026 killing at least 30 people—mostly women and children—and injuring dozens more. The attack has sparked international condemnation as violence continues to spread to previously calmer areas of the country.

According to local officials and humanitarian reports, the strike hit near the Abu Shandi displacement area in the Wad al-Mahi locality, approximately 50 kilometers east of the state capital, Ed Damazin. Families who had fled earlier rounds of fighting had sought shelter in the area, with many gathered near an artisanal gold-mining site at the time of the blast. Emergency medical personnel reported that at least four children were among the dead, and the death toll is expected to rise as dozens of critically injured victims receive emergency care.

Local government authorities and human rights monitors attribute the attack to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been locked in a bloody civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023. The strike comes amid intensifying clashes in the strategic Blue Nile region, near the Ethiopian border, where thousands of families have been forced from their homes in recent weeks.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) expressed outrage over the attack, emphasizing that civilian populations and displacement centers are strictly protected under international humanitarian law. Regional government representatives called for an immediate international investigation into the strike, describing the deliberate targeting of vulnerable displaced families as a grave war crime.

Aid agencies operating in the vicinity reported severe shortages of medical supplies and blood units at local clinic facilities, severely impeding efforts to treat the high influx of critically wounded survivors. Human rights groups warned that without an immediate cessation of aerial attacks and guaranteed humanitarian access corridors, the situation in the Blue Nile state risks spiraling into an even broader disaster for displaced populations across the border region.