A drone hit an Abyei market a week ago and nobody will say whose it was
The UN mission counts at least 80 dead, Reuters more than 150, and both belligerent governments have placed themselves on the record in opposite directions.
Drone strikes hit the Amiet, or An Nam, common market and the Todach area of the disputed Abyei region on Monday 19 October. UNISFA, the UN interim security force on the ground, put the toll at at least 80 killed and 27 injured, a figure carried by Sudan Tribune on 22 October and repeated by UN News, which noted peacekeepers visited the affected communities during the week. Reuters, in reporting carried on 23 October, put the dead at over 150 and said the strike was believed to have been aimed at a fuel depot used by the Rapid Support Forces, in a market serving Ngok Dinka and Misseriya traders. On Friday 23 October the Security Council condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms,” warned that attacks targeting civilians could constitute war crimes, and said the toll was expected to rise as verification continued.
No independent attribution of the strike exists. South Sudanese officials blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces, according to Radio Tamazuj; Sudan’s foreign ministry denied any SAF role on Thursday 22 October. The RSF-aligned “Government of Peace” called for an international investigation, with its minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Ammar Amoun Deldoum, saying a complaint was submitted on 19 October through the group’s permanent representative to the UN. On Saturday the head of Sudan’s own Abyei Joint Oversight Committee asked UNISFA to investigate the An Nam market strike, which Sudan Tribune puts at 80 dead. The wider pattern is now measured: the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said on 23 October that OHCHR had documented at least 306 people killed by drone strikes across Sudan in the first three weeks of October, attributed to both the army and the RSF, hitting homes, markets, hospitals and displacement sites.
Assessment: The two tolls are not necessarily in conflict; a UN mission verifying bodies in a cross-border market town will lag a wire’s sources, and the Council itself said the number will rise. Carry both and name both publishers. The incentive to watch is Khartoum’s: denying the strike while demanding that UNISFA investigate it is a bet that verification will be slow, inconclusive or point elsewhere. One caution for anyone aggregating October’s market strikes — a separate 18 October strike on a market at Al-Dibab in West Kordofan also carries an “at least 80” figure. The two should not be allowed to merge into one.