26 women, 4 children killed in Sudan RSF drone strike: official, witnesses

An attack struck Wad al-Mahi governorate in Sudan's Blue Nile state, near the Ethiopian border

A drone strike launched by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed 26 women and four children on Friday, an official and eyewitnesses told AFP.

The attack occurred in the Wad al-Mahi governorate of Blue Nile state, near Sudan's southeastern border with Ethiopia, according to Wad al-Mahi governor Mahgoub al-Sheikh.

The latest frontline in Sudan's war between the regular army and the RSF is the border region with Ethiopia, where an internal conflict is threatening to escalate into a regional war.

"We buried 26 women and four children," said an eyewitness in a displacement camp in Abu Shendi.

Just outside the camp is an informal gold mine, where women earn a daily wage using chemicals and their bare hands to clear gold nuggets from clumps of earth the men have extracted.

The victims included "young girls who work with their families in refining the gold", another eyewitness said.

Since the war broke out in April 2023, it has killed more than 200,000 people, aid workers estimate, and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.