Drone strike on disputed Abyei market kills dozens as UN warns death toll will keep rising

A drone strike tore through the Amiet Common Market in the disputed Abyei region on Monday, killing dozens of civilians and wounding many more in one of the deadliest single attacks of the year along the Sudan–South Sudan frontier. The United Nations said Tuesday that the casualty count was still being verified and was expected to climb further, with an unknown number of people still missing.

The strike hit the market, a trading hub used by displaced families and by the Ngok Dinka and Misseriya communities, at around midday local time on October 19. A nearby fuel depot was also hit and caught fire, according to local officials, compounding the destruction and complicating the recovery effort.

A toll still being counted

Abyei's caretaker administration initially put the death toll at 73, with 19 wounded, and warned the figure would rise as rescue teams worked through the wreckage. By Tuesday, the region's information minister said the number of dead had climbed past 150, according to local reporting, though that higher figure has not been independently verified by the UN or by international media on the ground. The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières, which has separately documented a wave of drone strikes on hospitals elsewhere in Sudan this year, said its supported Ameth Bek Hospital in Abyei town received more than 20 wounded, including people with critical injuries and burns.

In a statement issued from New York and published by the UN peacekeeping mission in Abyei, UNISFA, Secretary-General António Guterres said the strikes killed dozens of civilians, including women and children, near Amiet Market and the nearby settlement of Todach, and injured many others. He said UNISFA had deployed medical staff, firefighting teams and quick-reaction forces to the scene to treat the wounded, support casualty evacuation and stop the fire from spreading, and that the mission was still verifying the final toll because people remained unaccounted for.

"I strongly condemn the drone attacks in the Abyei area on 19 October that killed dozens of civilians," Guterres said, adding that attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law and that "there will need to be accountability."

A disputed, demilitarized borderland

Abyei's final status has remained unresolved since South Sudan's 2011 independence, with both Khartoum and Juba claiming the oil-producing area. UNISFA has patrolled the territory, which is meant to be demilitarized, since the same year. The market strike did not come out of nowhere: UNISFA had already warned twice in recent weeks that the area was growing more dangerous, urging restraint amid rising tensions in Abyei in early September and then condemning a separate outbreak of violence at the same Amiet market in mid-September, when at least 26 people were killed in intercommunal fighting. Displaced families fleeing fighting elsewhere in Sudan have also crowded into the area over the past year, swelling the market's population on trading days.

Diplomatic protest, military denial

South Sudan's government has blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces for the strike. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation summoned Sudan's ambassador in Juba, Isam Mohamed Hassan Karar, hours after the attack to lodge what it called a strong protest, according to Sudan's Post, which reported on the ministry meeting led by Undersecretary Agnes Adlino Orifa Oswaha. The ministry condemned the attack, offered condolences to victims' families and urged Khartoum to avoid actions that endanger civilians, calling instead for disputes over Abyei to be resolved through diplomatic channels.

Sudan's military has not issued a public statement confirming or denying responsibility. A Sudanese military officer, speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media, said the army had carried out the strike and that its target was fuel tankers destined for the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting the army for control of Sudan. That account could not be independently corroborated.

Part of a wider pattern

The UN placed Monday's strike in the context of a broader surge in drone warfare across Sudan's civil war, now in its third year. Citing the Abyei attack alongside other recent incidents, a spokesman for the secretary-general said in a statement reported by Africanews that the organization remained "alarmed by the relentless drone attacks across Sudan" and called the pattern "deeply concerning." The same statement cited a string of other strikes in recent days:

• A strike on Al Dibab market in West Kordofan that killed dozens of civilians
• A strike on a residential area in Khartoum that killed three children and their father
• An attack on a home in Nyala, South Darfur, that killed and injured women and children
• Drone strikes on the main power station in Tendalti, White Nile state

The UN said the identity of the operators behind many of these strikes often cannot be independently confirmed, even as both the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces are accused in various incidents.

What happens next

UNISFA said it was continuing search-and-recovery operations around Amiet Market and Todach and would issue updated casualty figures once verification was complete. Guterres called on the governments of Sudan and South Sudan to take all possible steps to prevent further attacks and to uphold Abyei's demilitarized status, while urging all parties to the wider Sudanese conflict to comply with international humanitarian law. South Sudan's foreign ministry said it expected a formal response from Khartoum, though no date has been set for any follow-up talks between the two governments on Abyei's unresolved status.