The Sudan Doctors Network says fighters from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North killed 27 civilians, including four children, in attacks on two villages in South Kordofan, in what the medical group is calling ethnically targeted violence against the region’s Otoro people.
What Happened
The killings took place in the villages of Qardud and Abu Hamama, both inhabited primarily by the Otoro tribe in South Kordofan. The Sudan Doctors Network, an independent medical monitoring group that has tracked casualties throughout Sudan’s civil war, said the attacks targeted unarmed civilians specifically because of their ethnicity, calling it a “clear violation of international humanitarian law.”
Displacement Follows the Violence
The attacks triggered a new wave of displacement, with residents fleeing toward the Abu Hitan area and the city of Kadugli in search of safety.
The Group Behind the Attacks
The SPLM-N, once a rebel movement fighting for the rights of Sudan’s marginalized border regions, has aligned itself with the Rapid Support Forces and joined the RSF-led parallel government that has emerged during Sudan’s ongoing civil war, under the leadership of Abdel Aziz al-Hilu. That alignment has drawn the group into the broader ethnic violence that has characterized much of the RSF’s conduct in Darfur and other regions since the war began.
A Call for International Pressure
The Sudan Doctors Network has urged the international community to pressure SPLM-N’s leadership to halt attacks on civilians, adding one more atrocity to a war that has already produced what aid groups describe as one of the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crises, with millions displaced and famine conditions declared in parts of the country.
