A drone attack in south-central Sudan struck a kindergarten in Kalogi, South Kordofan, killing 50 people, including 33 children, according to a doctors' group.
The Sudan Doctors' Network said paramedics who arrived at the scene were hit in what it described as a second unexpected attack. Emergency Lawyers, a rights group that tracks violence against civilians, later said a third civilian site near the first two was also attacked. The reports could not be independently verified because communication blackouts in the area have made it hard to count the dead and injured.
The doctors' group blamed Sudanese paramilitary forces, specifically the Rapid Support Forces, for the strike. The group called the attack a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and said civilian infrastructure, especially places used by children, had been targeted. UNICEF's representative in Sudan also condemned the killings, saying children should never pay the price of conflict and urging all parties to stop attacks and allow humanitarian assistance to reach those in need.
The strike is the latest sign that the war between the RSF and the Sudanese military is now concentrating in the Kordofan states after years of fighting that began in 2023. The AP report noted that the conflict has already shifted from Darfur, where the RSF took control of the besieged city of el-Fasher amid executions, sexual violence and other atrocities. Human rights monitors have warned that Kordofan could face new abuses on a similar scale.
The wider toll of the war is staggering. The World Health Organization has said more than 40,000 people have been killed, while about 12 million have been displaced. Aid groups say the true death toll may be much higher because communications are often cut off and large parts of the country are inaccessible. AP also reported that Sudanese military air strikes killed at least 48 people, mostly civilians, in Kauda, South Kordofan, on Sunday.
Taken together, the attacks show how civilian sites, relief workers and children remain exposed as the conflict spreads through the country's center. With roads broken, communications limited and rival forces fighting for territory, even a local account of casualties can take days to confirm, and the number of dead may still rise.
The difficulty in confirming the toll is part of the story too. Communication blackouts, battlefield access limits and repeated strikes on response teams mean that casualty counts in Sudan often arrive in pieces, if they arrive at all. That is why the doctors' group, the rights monitors and UNICEF all used urgent language: the attack hit children, then the people trying to save them, in a place where even a reliable body count is hard to establish.
The broader war context also matters because Kordofan has become the new front line after the RSF's gains in Darfur. Once fighting shifts into a new region, civilian sites like schools, clinics and roads are often the first to suffer, and the same pattern was already visible in the report of military strikes in Kauda. What happened in Kalogi fits that pattern and suggests the toll on children and aid workers may keep rising.
