Sudan: army claims recapture of Bara, at least 51 dead in fighting

Clashes across Sudan's southern Kordofan region killed at least 51 people between Wednesday and Thursday, medical sources told AFP, as the army said it recaptured the city of Bara, on the road to Khartoum.

Kordofan is currently the fiercest battlefield in the war raging between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023.

The South Kordofan city of Dilling was rocked throughout the day Thursday by artillery fire and drone strikes, sources in the city said. A medical source at Dilling Hospital said 28 people were killed and 60 injured, "including children and women".

"The shelling has been very intense, bombs have been falling since the morning and many homes have been destroyed," another resident of the city told AFP. Both requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Dilling was under paramilitary siege for much of the war, before the Sudanese army broke through in January. But the RSF has since continued attacking it, mainly with drone strikes, including one that killed five and injured seven on Wednesday, according to the same medical source.

Another strike, blamed on the army, killed 18 and wounded 25 in the West Kordofan city of Al-Mojlad on Wednesday, a medic at the local hospital told AFP.

The army has for months pushed back against an RSF offensive in the region, which links the paramilitary group's strongholds in the western Darfur region to the army-controlled east.

Drone warfare

On Thursday, the army said it recaptured the city of Bara, which lies on a key highway linking Khartoum with North Kordofan state capital El-Obeid. Bara was a key staging post for the RSF to launch attacks on El-Obeid, which it has sought to re-encircle for months. Tens of thousands have been displaced in recent months, as control of the city repeatedly traded hands. "Entering Bara is a major turning point and will have repercussions for El-Obeid and all of North Kordofan," an army official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A drone strike was later reported on a state public prosecution building in El-Obeid, a local official told AFP, blaming "the RSF militia" for the attack.

Both sides have relied on drone warfare, killing dozens of civilians at a time and drawing frequent condemnation from the United Nations.

The UN said this week its most senior official in Sudan, resident coordinator Denise Brown, led the first mission to Dilling.

"Major fighting" broke out there on March 1, paralysing the city, Brown said in a video message. "The population can't move. This is what war is, civilians being caught in the midst of this fighting," she said, calling for urgent safe aid access.

Across Kordofan, hundreds of thousands are on the brink of starvation. Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced, creating the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.