- Lead. A Sudanese Armed Forces drone struck a customary court in North Darfur on August 2, killing at least 35 people gathered for a tribal leaders’ meeting, according to rights monitors.
- Fact. The civil war between army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has now entered its fourth year and produced the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
- Stake. Rights groups say the target was a civilian judicial facility, deepening concerns about accountability in a conflict that receives little sustained international attention.
The Strike
The drone fired multiple missiles at a building in the Ghurra Zawia area of Kabkabiya locality, North Darfur, while local leaders were meeting inside, according to an Al Jazeera report citing Emergency Lawyers, an independent Sudanese atrocity-documentation group. Emergency Lawyers put the death toll at a minimum of 35; eyewitnesses told monitors that 37 people had been killed, while the RSF-aligned Sudan Founding Coalition claimed 40 civilian fatalities.
Victims reportedly included tribal elders and RSF field commanders from the Mahameed branch of the Rizeigat tribe who had convened for a customary court session — a forum that handles local disputes and community governance across Darfur’s tribal structure. Emergency Lawyers described the target as “a civilian facility that plays a judicial and social role in the region.” The Sudanese Armed Forces made no public comment on the strike.
A War of Drone Operations
The Kabkabiya strike fits a pattern of intensified SAF drone operations across RSF-held territory in Darfur that has accelerated in recent months. The military has used armed drones to target RSF logistics and command positions, though rights groups have documented repeated strikes on civilian gatherings where RSF commanders were believed to be present.
North Darfur’s capital El Fasher remains under sustained military pressure. International food security monitors have declared IPC Phase 5 famine conditions — the most severe category — in El Fasher and in Kadugli, South Kordofan. El Fasher is the last major Darfuri city not under RSF control, making it a focal point of the broader military competition.
No Diplomatic Track
The Sudan civil war began in April 2023 after the breakdown of a post-coup power-sharing arrangement between al-Burhan’s Sudan Armed Forces and Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and more than 14 million have been displaced, according to UN estimates, making it the world’s largest internal displacement crisis. No active diplomatic process is currently mediating between the two sides.
Previous ceasefires brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States in Jeddah collapsed within days of their signing. International attention to Sudan has been episodic, often crowded out by other conflicts, even as humanitarian organisations warn that the scale of suffering exceeds that of better-publicised crises. Emergency Lawyers and a small number of other Sudanese civil society groups continue to document atrocities with minimal access for independent investigators.
No UN Security Council session was convened in direct response to the Kabkabiya strike. The nearest international accountability mechanism — the International Criminal Court, which has an active Sudan mandate dating to 2005 — has not opened proceedings specific to the current conflict between the SAF and RSF.