Key Points

• Sudan airstrikes killed dozens of civilians.

• Hospital and school areas were heavily damaged.

• Sudan airstrikes sparked urgent global concern.

The World Health Organisation said that at least 114 people, including 63 children, were killed in drone strikes that hit a kindergarten and a hospital in Sudan’s South Kordofan state last week. They called the attacks “senseless” attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Local officials and UN health monitors say the strikes happened on Thursday in the army-controlled town of Kalogi.

Essam al-Din al-Sayed, who is in charge of the Kalogi administrative unit, told AFP that a paramilitary drone hit the kindergarten first and then hit the nearby hospital several times. Reports say that a third strike happened while people were trying to save kids who were stuck in the rubble.

Strikes hit a hospital and a place for kids

According to data from the UN’s Attacks on Health Care monitoring system, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the attacks hit the kindergarten and Kalogi Rural Hospital at least three times.

The strikes hurt 35 people, and those who lived were taken to Abu Jebaiha Hospital for emergency care. Health workers have made urgent calls for blood donations and medical supplies because hospitals are having trouble handling the large number of victims.

Tedros said that emergency workers were also attacked while trying to get hurt kids out of the area.

Conflict is getting worse in the Kordofan region

The attack happens as the civil war in Sudan gets worse. Since April 2023, fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people and forced almost 12 million people to leave their homes.

After the RSF took El-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in western Sudan, in late October, the paramilitary group moved deeper into the oil-rich Kordofan region, which is now a major front in the conflict.

WHO calls for a ceasefire and more access to aid

The WHO condemned the attack and called for a ceasefire once more. They warned that continued attacks on civilian and medical facilities break international humanitarian laws.

Tedros said, “Sudanese have suffered far too much.” He called for an end to the violence right away and for humanitarian aid groups, including health workers, to be able to get to the country without any problems.

The WHO said that it keeps track of and verifies attacks on medical infrastructure, but it doesn’t officially say who is to blame because it is not a court or an investigative body.