Sudan’s war watchdog accused the military of killing hundreds of people in the market in the western Darfur region of the country.
Emergency Lawyers Group – documenting the abuse of Sudan in the Sudan civil war that broke out in April 2023 – said the bombing of the Tula market was a “terrible massacre” that also injured hundreds of people.
Video posted on social media – Army rival The Rapid Support Force (RSF), which controls most of Darfur – shows the smoking ruins of market stalls and corpses, unacceptable.
A military spokesman denied targeting civilians, saying it only attacked legal hostile targets.
Both the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF have been repeatedly accused of shelling civilians.
The RSF deployed drones in Darfur, but the army owned fighter jets – and often striked RSF locations in the region.
The BBC could not confirm the death toll or the exact date of the market’s attack, which is about 35 kilometers (21 miles) north of the Army-owned city of El-Fasher.
The Darfur radicalist group – Darfur’s Justice and Peace Initiative – said it happened on Monday, calling it “the deadliest explosion since the war began”.
In recent months, civilian deaths in bomb and shelling attacks have intensified as the country’s brutal civil conflict escalates.
Since the outbreak of the war, about 12 million Sudanese have fled their homes – the equivalent of the entire population of Belgium or Tunisia.
The UN said famine had taken over and hunger was widespread, with more than half of the countries suffering from “high levels of acute food insecurity”.
It is estimated to be different, but at least 150,000 people are said to have been killed by the battle.
The RSF denies evidence that it is committing genocide in Darfur, including the murder of thousands of civilians, and the rape of non-Arab women as a means of “ethnic cleansing.”
According to the United Nations, Sudan is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Other reports from BBC’s Akisa Wandera.
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