Darfur: more than 100 dead at a Nyala market, France must take the end of the drone war to the UN

A market struck at nightfall

On Monday 26 October, at around 8 p.m., at least one drone strike hit a night market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and a stronghold of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitaries at war with the Sudanese army since April 2023. Three days later, the toll remains uncertain, and that in itself is news.

The rights group Emergency Lawyers reports 102 dead and 113 wounded, mostly women and children, according to Al Jazeera. The Sudan Doctors Network gives a provisional toll of 21 dead and more than 40 wounded, close to the figure a hospital source gave AFP as early as Tuesday. Médecins sans frontières says the hospital it supports received 36 bodies, 21 of them in civilian clothing, and that its teams saw more than 150 wounded. The NGO also reports a second strike on a residential neighbourhood. None of these figures could be independently verified.

Who carried out the strike has not been officially established. MSF and Emergency Lawyers attribute it to the regular army. A spokesperson for the special forces fighting alongside the army claimed, according to Al Jazeera, a "precise and targeted" strike on an RSF recruits' camp west of Nyala, without mentioning the market. Witnesses quoted by the press say paramilitary fighters frequented the area.

A war gone airborne

This tragedy is part of an escalation documented by the United Nations. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded at least 306 deaths in drone strikes during the first three weeks of October, attributed in different cases to the army or the RSF: a transport truck struck twice in West Kordofan, displaced people in Blue Nile, hospitals, power stations. Volker Türk called on both sides to commit to a ceasefire. On Wednesday, the UN again condemned these attacks, and the French embassy in Sudan described the recent escalation of strikes as "entirely unacceptable", wherever they take place, according to Dabanga.

The war is also spilling across borders. On Wednesday, Sudan's Foreign Affairs undersecretary, Muawiya Osman Khalid, accused Ethiopia of allowing drones that struck power and oil facilities to take off from its soil, and denounced an "Ethiopian-Emirati aggression", The Rio Times reports. Khartoum presented debris and flight paths that the press was unable to authenticate. Addis Ababa had not responded to this new accusation, after dismissing similar allegations as baseless in May. The United Arab Emirates, for their part, have always denied arming the RSF.

The arguments on each side

The Sudanese government maintains that its strikes target military objectives in cities the RSF has turned into bases, and that a state under attack has the right to defend itself against a militia accused of massacres in Darfur. The argument should not be dismissed: the paramilitaries themselves have been blamed by the UN for attacks on civilians, and, according to AFP, it was their drones that cut power this week to a large part of Khartoum and the east of the country.

But international humanitarian law knows no good side. It requires distinguishing between combatants and civilians, and refraining from any strike whose foreseeable civilian losses would be excessive. A crowded market at nightfall does not become a target because combatants are present. MSF put it soberly:

Markets, homes and civilian infrastructure are not targets. — Médecins sans frontières

What France can do

Sudan is not a distant war beyond Paris's reach. In April 2024, France hosted the international humanitarian conference on Sudan. It sits on the Security Council, where an arms embargo on Darfur has existed since 2004. It maintains a close strategic and military partnership with the Emirates, and a long-standing dialogue with Ethiopia. It therefore has both a platform and levers.

The Gaullist tradition of French diplomacy, which refused to choose sides out of alignment rather than principle, should guide the response. Condemning strikes wherever they come from is necessary, but no longer enough. Three avenues seem within reach. First, bring to the Security Council the extension of the embargo to the whole of Sudanese territory, with a credible mechanism to monitor drone deliveries. Second, support an independent international investigation into Nyala and the strikes recorded in October, so that conflicting tolls give way to established facts. Finally, publicly ask our partners, Abu Dhabi included, for verifiable guarantees that they provide no military support to the warring parties.

There is also a matter of concrete solidarity. Sudan is experiencing, according to the UN, the worst displacement crisis in the world, and acute malnutrition among children is rising in Nyala itself.

A question for Europe

While attention is focused on Gaza, Ukraine or the Strait of Hormuz, the war in Sudan kills in relative silence, a few hours' flight from our borders and along a migration route leading to the Mediterranean. Will the European Union, which claims a diplomacy founded on law, agree to exert real pressure on the powers fuelling this conflict, including when they are its own trading partners?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.