Drone strikes on dormitory, shelter kill 10 in Sudan's El-Obeid

Drone attacks on a university dormitory and a centre sheltering displaced families in Sudan's central city of El-Obeid killed at least 10 people this week, a Sudanese rights group and a medical source said on Friday.

The attacks came as fighting intensified in North Kordofan, a strategically important region where Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are battling for territory more than three years into a war that has shattered much of the country.

On Wednesday, a drone struck a dormitory at the University of Kordofan that was being used to house students and civilians, according to the Emergency Lawyers group, a Sudanese rights organisation that monitors abuses during the conflict.

The group said the attack killed five people and wounded 47 others, but did not say who was responsible.

A day later, another drone hit a centre sheltering families displaced by fighting from across the Kordofan region, killing five people and injuring 13 others, a North Kordofan government official and a medical source at a local hospital told AFP.

The government official accused the RSF of carrying out the attack. The paramilitary group did not immediately respond to the allegation.

In recent months, both the army and the RSF have increasingly deployed drones, killing more than 1,100 during the first five months of this year alone, according to United Nations figures.

El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, has emerged as a key battleground in Sudan's war, owing to its strategic location at a crossroads linking the country's central and western regions.

The UN has repeatedly warned that escalating violence in El-Obeid and the broader Kordofan region risked triggering further atrocities, issuing in July what it described as a red alert over conditions there.

More than 300,000 people have been displaced from the region since the RSF captured El-Fasher, the military's last major stronghold in Darfur, following a major offensive last year, according to the UN.

The war between Sudan's army and the RSF has killed more than 200,000 people, aid workers estimate, displaced more than 13 million and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.