In a strongly worded statement on social media, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs denounced both warring factions for weaponizing starvation and targeting innocent families.
“SAF and RSF atrocities against Sudanese civilians and humanitarians are grotesque,” the bureau stated. “These barbaric attacks must stop. The time is long past for the belligerents to accept a humanitarian truce.”
The U.S. statement highlighted a string of deadly SAF attacks, pointing specifically to a reported drone strike on El-Naam’s ostrich market that killed civilians going about their daily lives.
This aligns with an expanding and deadly SAF drone campaign targeting civilian concentrations across Kordofan and Darfur. On Wednesday, a SAF drone strike hit a water collection point in Umm Rusum village, located in the RSF-controlled Al-Sunut locality of West Kordofan State, killing at least 18 civilians, including children.
The strike hit a civilian gathering area where residents had assembled to collect drinking water at approximately 1 p.m. local time, coinciding with the first day of the holy month of Ramadan.
Video footage recorded shortly after the strike, which was geolocated by Sudans Post to specific coordinates here (12°10’58.73”N 28°55’25.43”E), showed civilian belongings, water containers, and livestock carcasses across the site, indicating it was a civilian gathering point rather than a military installation.
Multiple bodies, including children as young as two years old, were visible on the sandy ground near the well.
In the footage, a witness described the victims as civilians with no connection to the RSF.
“I do not know what the exact date today is, but a drone has bombed the area of Umm Rusum and killed innocent children who have no connection with anything called the RSF,” the individual filming said, as women could be heard crying nearby. “These bodies lying here are all martyrs, and among them are very young children, including those who were only three years old and two years old, who were killed today in this strike. This drone, today on the first day of Ramadan, came and bombed them and killed them.”
The SAF drone campaign has also struck major commercial hubs. On Feb. 17, a drone hit the Al-Safiya market in North Kordofan, killing at least 28 civilians during daytime trading hours.
On Feb. 15, another strike hit the Adikong market in West Darfur near the Chad border, killing one civilian and injuring others. While Sudanese army-aligned social media accounts claimed the Adikong strike targeted RSF fuel logistics, local witnesses and monitoring groups maintained it was a civilian commercial zone.
Alongside the SAF bombardments, the U.S. State Department strongly condemned the RSF for its own campaign of atrocities against civilians and aid operations.
The State Department explicitly cited a reported RSF strike on Kweik hospital, which resulted in the deaths of health workers.
Washington also condemned both the RSF and SAF for directly attacking World Food Program (WFP) facilities, killing WFP workers, and destroying vital humanitarian supplies.
