Rebels Shell Residential Areas in Sudan’s Dilling, Killing Five Including Child

International Desk, PNN

At least five people, including a child, have been killed in rebel shelling of residential areas in the city of Dilling in Sudan’s South Kordofan province. Several others were also injured, according to a medical organisation in the country.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Sudan Doctors Network accused fighters from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) of carrying out heavy artillery attacks on civilian-populated areas of Dilling.

The attacks reportedly damaged homes and civilian settlements and resulted in casualties.

The organisation said such attacks on residential areas constitute a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

The situation in South Kordofan, which was already devastated by the war, has become even more severe as a result.

The Sudan Doctors Network called on the international community to take immediate action.

It also called for effective pressure to be placed on the leadership of the al-Hilu faction of the SPLM-N to stop attacks on civilians and residential areas.

The SPLM-N is essentially a breakaway faction of Sudan’s former SPLM.

In neighbouring South Sudan, the party is known as a ruling political force.

The organisation’s leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, is currently allied with Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

He has also become involved with an alternative government structure led by the RSF.

In another statement issued several hours before the attack in Dilling, the Sudan Doctors Network said more than 21 people were killed in an SPLM-N attack on the areas of Debi and Luweri near the town of Kauda on Thursday.

Women and children were among those killed.

According to the organisation, the main target of the attack was the minority Otoro community in the Nuba Mountains region.

Clashes had occurred in the area earlier this year over a land dispute.

There are concerns that the recent attacks, linked to that dispute, are creating renewed ethnic tensions in Sudan’s ongoing civil war.

Last month, the RSF put forward a ceasefire initiative, but al-Hilu did not join the agreement.

Subsequently, between August 20 and 26, his forces were accused of attacking at least 10 Otoro villages.

Thousands of people were reportedly forced to flee their homes as a result of the violence.

Amid the renewed escalation of violence in Sudan, a UN-backed independent investigative mission has also expressed concern about the conflict.

In a report published on Thursday, the mission said networks supplying foreign fighters, weapons and other military equipment, along with the use of military drones, were intensifying the conflict in the country.

As a result, the level of violence against civilians across Sudan is also increasing.

A devastating war has been raging between Sudan’s army and the RSF since April 2023.

Tens of thousands of people have already been killed in the prolonged conflict.

Around 13 million people have been displaced.

The food crisis has become so severe in various parts of the country that famine conditions have emerged in some areas.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 34 million people in Sudan currently require urgent humanitarian assistance, representing approximately two-thirds of the country’s total population.

With the conflict spreading anew in South Kordofan, concerns are growing that the suffering of civilians will increase further.