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Airstrikes in Darfur Missed Their Target. These Refugees Were Hit Instead.
Airstrikes carried out by the Sudanese military in Darfur have been sending refugees fleeing for safety and medical treatment, as they describe being victimized by bombs intended for the army’s opposition.
Ten-year-old Isah Abdallah Fadul was injured last year in an airstrike at a busy market in Darfur. Isah and her family are among the latest arrivals from Sudan seeking medical treatment at this Doctors Without Borders clinic amid a violent civil war. The Sudanese military and paramilitary fighters with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, have been engaged in a brutal conflict since April of 2023. According to a recent U.N. report, the military has been carrying out airstrikes to repel advances by the R.S.F., resulting in high death tolls and a worsening humanitarian situation that is sending refugees fleeing to remote parts of the border. A bomb from one of these airstrikes hit Isah 10 months ago, shortly after paramilitary troops infiltrated the market. Her father bandaged her injuries, but finding proper treatment had been challenging, until now. Doctors Without Borders recently scaled up their mobile clinic services to meet the growing demand of refugee arrivals. That number is expected to rise after Sudan’s military retook the capital of Khartoum in March. And as the R.S.F. regroups in its Darfur stronghold, this was the scene just days later when another airstrike hit an open-air market in Northern Darfur. The Sudanese military and the R.S.F. have both been accused of atrocities. After the market airstrike, the army was accused of indiscriminately attacking civilian areas. The army responded that any allegations that the attack was an atrocity committed against civilians are completely false. Meanwhile, the R.S.F. has faced frequent accusations by the United States of genocide over ethnic massacres carried out by its soldiers and allied militias. Again and again, a pattern emerged in our interviews with survivors. R.S.F. troops would move into a village or town, only to be followed by a Sudanese military airstrike. At this refugee camp in Adré, further south along the Sudanese border, another family that just arrived shared their story. For refugees who do make it across the border, the first step is to assess and treat before making decisions on what comes next. Back in Tiné, Isah’s doctors say her leg is infected and that she’ll have to be transferred to a larger hospital in the coming days.
April 6, 2025, 4:55 a.m. ET
The first stop for many Sudanese refugees fleeing deadly ground attacks and airstrikes in Sudan is a remote mobile medical clinic along the border with Chad, operated by Doctors Without Borders, also known as the M.S.F. Sudan’s civil war is entering its third year, and increasing airstrikes have been a driving factor for many refugees now fleeing the country for safety in neighboring Chad.
“I’m always afraid of the planes,” said Kubrah Abdullah Dawood, 25, a Sudanese refugee who had just crossed the border alone with her 11-month-old daughter. Doctors Without Borders staff members quickly ushered her into a makeshift tented clinic just steps from the border where she told them that she fled Darfur’s capital of El Fasher after an airstrike killed her brother, which she said was from a drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the R.S.F.
“As the Sudanese Armed Forces have made progress in Khartoum, we’ve seen more [R.S.F.] moving towards Darfur,” said Kate Hixon, advocacy director for Sub-Saharan Africa Amnesty USA. “Wherever the R.S.F. is, we’ve seen burning of villages, blocking of aid, conflict related sexual violence, and we expect an increase in that in the coming weeks.”
While Hixon notes an expected increase in ground attacks as the R.S.F. regroups in its Darfur stronghold, she said airstrikes from both sides of the war have been a driving factor of recent displacement.
In recent months, the influx of refugees to the region prompted Doctors Without Borders to scale up their services along the more rural northern border regions of Chad. Survivors who recently fled the Darfur region described to The New York Times how airstrikes by Sudan’s military would follow shortly after R.S.F. soldiers infiltrated their villages, or marketplaces.
“The R.S.F. would raid the village, [and then] the [Sudanese military] would strike,” said Fayza Adam Yagub, 38, from Saraf Omra, at a refugee camp in Adré, Chad. “But the R.S.F. would manage to escape, and the poor people were the ones getting hit.”
As recently as March 25, a Sudanese military airstrike in the small village of Toura in North Darfur killed at least 54 people and wounded dozens more, according to local monitoring groups, who called the attack a war crime — an accusation the army has denied. The R.S.F. soldiers, and their allied militias, have also been accused of targeting civilians.
Sudan’s military and the R.S.F. have been embroiled in a brutal civil war that has killed nearly 20,000 civilians, and displaced over 12 million people, according to the United Nations, which noted the situation was only getting worse.
