THE death toll from an attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a kindergarten and other sites in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan has risen to at least 114 people, including 46 children, according to a local official.
The executive director of Kalogi locality in told Al Jazeera on Saturday that at least 71 people were killed in an initial attack on Thursday.
Sudan Doctors’ Network said in a statement late on Friday that paramedics reporting to the scene were targeted in “a second unexpected attack”.
Two military sources in the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) also told Al Jazeera the RSF attacked the kindergarten on Thursday and later targeted civilians who had gathered to offer assistance amid the carnage.
The city’s hospital and a government building were also bombed, the sources said.
Communication blackouts in the area have made it difficult to report casualties, but there were fears the death toll could rise even further.
“Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights,” Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan, said in a statement on Friday.
“Children should never pay the price of conflict,” added Yett, urging all parties “to stop these attacks immediately and allow safe, unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to reach those in desperate need.”
On Thursday, the Sudan Doctors Network initially reported that at least nine people were killed, including four children and two women, in “deliberate suicide-drone attacks carried out in Kalogi town” carried out by the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (al-Hilou), on the kindergarten and several civilian facilities.
“This attack constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and is a continuation of the targeting of civilians and vital infrastructure,” the group said.
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said the death toll has continued to rise after the initial reports because of the difficulty in getting medical assistance to those wounded in the attacks.
It’s the latest instance of alleged RSF atrocities against civilians in the ongoing brutal civil war, now deep into its third year, pitting the SAF against the paramilitary RSF. The SAF has also been accused of committing atrocities in the war.
Morgan added that Kordofan has become the “scene of intense fighting between the army and the RSF in the past few weeks” following last month’s fall of el-Fasher, the army’s last major city in the Darfur region in western Sudan.
On Thursday, the United Nations warned that the Kordofan region of Sudan could face another wave of mass atrocities as fierce fighting between rival armed forces threatens a humanitarian catastrophe.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that history was “repeating itself” in Kordofan following last month’s fall of el-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, where warnings of impending violence were largely ignored by the international community before widespread killings occurred.
“It is truly shocking to see history repeating itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in el-Fasher,” Turk said, urging global powers to prevent the region from suffering a similar fate.