Terror Strike Shatters Christmas Worship
Drone Attack Kills Civilians Gathered for Christmas Celebration
A drone attack on the village of Julud in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan killed 12 people and injured 19 others, as worshipers gathered to hold Christmas celebrations on December 25th.
Civilian Assault Condemned
The SPLM-North, an armed group who controls the region, said the bombing was a “deliberate attack on civilians who had gathered to celebrate a religious occasion – the Christmas holiday.” Photos confirm women, children, and elderly were among the injured and killed.
The attack is part of an escalating incidence of war crimes and violence aimed at unarmed civilian populations in Sudan’s civil war which is approaching its third year.
The Darfur Victims Support issued a statement condemning the drone strike. “The organization considers this attack a grave crime that may amount to a war crime, as it deliberately targeted civilians during a peaceful religious occasion without any legitimate military justification, within the broader context of repeated aerial assaults on populated civilian areas.”
Women, children, and elderly were among the injured or killed in the Christmas day strike.
Drone Strike Part of Wider Aerial Campaign
The recent attack is part of a wider air campaign imposed by drone strikes and warplanes against rebel-controlled areas that targeted markets, hospitals, and homes in addition to military sites. A British foreign official told the BBC, “This evidence of military airstrikes hitting marketplaces and other civilian areas shows a clear and unacceptable disregard for the safety of innocent Sudanese civilians.”
Both warring parties – the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – are accused of having committed mass killings, mass detentions that often follow ethnic lines, and the use of starvation as a weapon of warfare.
Changing Face of the War
The civil war that ignited in April of 2023 has entered a new phase, as fighting begins to infiltrate the Nuba Mountains – an area previously spared much of the violence due to its remote location and challenging terrain. The region also hosts refugee camps that have received more than a million internally displaced Sudanese.
The SPLM-North’s recent alliance with RSF forces has added a new dimension to the face of the war, now allowing RSF troops to operate in its territory that spans the Nuba Mountains.
The Kordofan region is the latest battleground in Sudan’s bloody and brutal conflict. RSF forces reportedly “extinguished SAF resistance in West Kordofan,” while intense fighting continues in North and South Kordofan around the cities of El Obeid, Dilling, and Kadugli.
An injured boy is the latest victim in an escalating pattern of targeted civilian assaults.
Humanitarian Aid an Urgent Need
The UN cited “grave concerns” in early December over “intensified hostilities, violence, atrocities and human rights abuses in the Kordofan region as a result of fighting between the SAF and the RSF, and their associated allied forces,” while the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva reported an “escalation of ethnic violence.”
Sudan Relief Fund continues to support civilians with humanitarian aid to hospitals and refugee camps in the Nuba Mountains, providing food during the nation’s widespread famine, and supplying medicine to Mother of Mercy Hospital – one of the few medical facilities still open in the area.
Much more humanitarian aid is urgently needed. All contributions will ship food and medicine to civilian refugee populations in the Nuba Mountains.
