Reports indicate that at least nine people have been killed, and 11 others were wounded following an airstrike by the Sudanese Air Force in El Koma in North Darfur, yesterday. The attack is the latest in the series of an intensified campaign of aerial bombardments on the town, which has seen widespread devastation since the conflict began.
Omda of El Koma, Ibrahim Idris Dumo, confirmed the bombing targeted civilian area. Dumo questioned the logic behind bombing unarmed civilians, calling the attack the 72nd airstrike in El Koma since the war began.
Civil society activist Saleh Harirein, speaking to Radio Dabanga, said the airstrike involved the deployment of eight barrel bombs across two neighbourhoods, causing extensive damage to homes and infrastructure. Last week, he told Radio Dabanga that the military’s ariel assaults in El Koma have “killed hundreds of people”.
According to the town’s residents and corroborated by another Omda in El Koma, Muhammed Adam Ajallah, “Just last week, humanitarian aid organisations arrived and found no trace of military presence,” he said. Ajallah called for international intervention to protect the civilians of El Koma, who are regularly targeted by air raids.
El Koma has been subjected to dozens of bombings since the outbreak of the war, with the most devastating occurring on 4 October, when more than 70 people were killed and over 200 injured.
Local sources suggest the Sudanese Air Forces believe the El Koma harbours weapons and military supplies linked to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but activists like Harirein vehemently deny these claims.
“The city’s infrastructure is destroyed. There is no place to store weapons,” Harirein said. He explained that continuous airstrikes have forced many families to flee, with some now living in the open or seeking shelter elsewhere in Darfur.
A local dignitary accused the Darfur Joint Force* of orchestrating the ongoing bombardment. However, these allegations have not been independently verified by Radio Dabanga.
Located about 75 kilometres northeast of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, El Kuma has been hosting more than 45,000 displaced families who fled the violence from Darfur, Khartoum, and Kordofan.
As the humanitarian crisis deepens, calls for international intervention to protect civilians continue to grow louder.
* The Darfur Joint Force was formed in June 2022, as agreed on in the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement (JPA), to protect the people in the region. The force was made up of fighters of the Sudan Liberation Movement faction headed by Darfur Governor Minni Minawi (SLM-MM), the JEM faction led by Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim (JEM-GI), and several small rebel groups that signed the JPA. These movements renounced their neutrality in November last year and are now fighting the RSF alongside the Sudanese army. Since then, Sudanese media speak about the Joint Force of Armed Struggle Movements, while the group’s logo on their X and Facebook accounts says Sudanese Joint Force (and in Arabic Sudanese Joint Forces).
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Source: dabangasudan
