The smell of explosives lingers in the air upon our arrival. Just hours before, a displacement camp in Atbara, housing families who fled the war in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, was struck by two drone attacks as part of a four-pronged assault.
On April 25th, the first bombing set ablaze donated tents, claiming the lives of children within. The second strike targeted a school, which had become a makeshift shelter for displaced families.
Debris, including chunks of cement and plaster, litter the classrooms, evidence of the explosive force unleashed when the second bomb dropped. Blood marks the entrance of the closest shelter to the crater, where we’re told by neighbors that four family members were instantly killed.
“It’s inhumane,” says a neighbor, Mahialdeen, whose brother and sister were injured. “We fled Khartoum because of the fighting, and it followed us here.” Wiping away a tear, he adds, “It’s chasing us.”
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have increasingly employed drones to carry out attacks, according to data from the conflict-monitoring organization ACLED. The most targeted areas have been Khartoum, North Darfur, and Atbara’s River Nile State, suggesting a tactical shift following the Sudanese Armed Forces’ recapture of Khartoum and the RSF’s subsequent withdrawal from the capital.
We were granted access to the remains of the latest suicide drones launched at Khartoum, which lacked distinct signs of commercial origin. Drone specialists informed Sky News that these are self-built devices, constructed with generic parts devoid of identifiable manufacturers.
Yale School of Public Health researchers have previously identified drones sighted in South Darfur as consistent with the Chinese-produced FH-95. Analysis by Sky News confirms these findings, with observed features and measurementsarring closely with those of the CH-95 and FH-95, both of Chinese origin. The United Arab Emirates is accused of supplying these drones to the RSF through South Sudan and Uganda, though this is denied by the UAE.
The rapid escalation in drone strikes is being brutally endured by those on the ground. At Atbara’s Police Hospital, we find a ward filled with injury survivors. Among them is a three-year-old girl, Manasiq, who, wrapped in bandages and covered with dried blood, stares ceilling in shocked silence. Despite being flung across the classroom by the blast, she has miraculously survived, with shrapnel lodged in her head.
A mother, Fadwa, sits alone, her son lost to the violence before they could escape Khartoum. Her surviving children, oblivious to their brother’s fate, continue to ask for him, a weight Fadwa struggles to lift. “What can I say? This is our fate,” she utters, resigned. “We are condemned to this fate.”
