Drones struck a market in Abyei on Monday, killing at least 73 people and wounding 19, according to the disputed territory’s caretaker information minister, Yohana Akol Ngor. Ngor spoke to Reuters on Tuesday.
He blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces but offered no evidence. Neither the toll nor responsibility for the strike has been independently verified.
Amiet Common Market lies roughly 10 kilometers from Abyei town. Ngor said drones hit the market’s center, southern section and northern gate.
One strike reached the part of the market where traders sold fuel, Ngor said. Fire and thick smoke then slowed the search. He described the dead as civilians from Sudan and South Sudan, most of them traders.
Paramount chief of the Ngok Dinka community, Bulabek Deng Kuol, counted at least 12 drones in comments to Radio Tamazuj. Virginia Times could not independently verify this count.
At nearby Ameth Bek Hospital, Médecins Sans Frontières said its staff had received more than 20 wounded people. Some of the injured are in critical condition and have burn injuries.
South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry also reported a drone attack on a market north of Abyei town. The ministry gave no casualty count.
It summoned Sudan’s ambassador and lodged a protest over the attack and the danger to civilians, according to its statement.
Both Sudan and South Sudan administer the region of Abyei, which is rich in oil. Its status is yet to be settled following South Sudan’s independence in 2011.
This attack is taking place against the backdrop of war in Sudan, which broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Reuters reported that militias and other states have joined the war since then. The United Nations says that it is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
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