African–European Organization for Humanitarian Action and Development Aerial Attacks as a Tool of the De Facto Authority in Port Sudan: Targeting Civilians and Undermining the Ceasefire in Darfur

The aerial strikes carried out by the Sudanese Armed Forces using unmanned aerial vehicles in the Darfur region can no longer be described as exceptional military incidents or incidental battlefield errors. Rather, they have evolved into a sustained pattern reflecting a policy that deliberately directs systematic violence toward the civilian sphere, thereby stripping any discourse on de-escalation or ceasefire of its substantive meaning. In this context, the attack on the Al-Zurug area and the Al-Gharir market in North Darfur State cannot be understood in isolation from a continuous series of aerial operations that treat civilians as an integral component of the war equation, entrenching the violation of their lives as an instrument of conflict management.

Field information indicates that a single drone carried out two consecutive strikes with notable temporal and spatial precision. The first strike targeted the only functioning hospital in the Al-Zurug area, followed by a subsequent strike against the nearby Al-Gharir market. This sequence does not suggest randomness; rather, it demonstrates a conscious selection of purely civilian objects, beginning with the sole medical facility relied upon by thousands of residents and culminating in a market that constitutes a central pillar of daily life. The attack resulted in the complete destruction of the hospital and its removal from service, leaving the area without any capacity to provide emergency or medical care, in flagrant violation of the special protection afforded to medical facilities. Preliminary reports indicate that more than one hundred people were killed, including the only doctor working at the hospital and several members of the medical staff, in addition to dozens of wounded civilians who were left without care amid the total collapse of health services.

The targeting of Al-Gharir market represented a direct extension of this violence, causing further casualties among women, children, and the elderly, and destroying the limited remaining sources of livelihood for the population. Striking a medical facility and then a civilian market within a single operation can only be interpreted as a message of violence directed at the civilian community itself—one aimed at spreading collective terror, undermining the conditions of survival, and entrenching a reality in which no safe haven exists outside the logic of unrestrained force.

The Organization affirms that what occurred in Al-Zurug and Al-Gharir market forms part of a broader pattern of recurring aerial attacks that have escalated in recent weeks, despite declared international calls for a ceasefire. On the first Thursday of January, a Sudanese army drone targeted a civilian gathering during a social occasion in the Al-Firdaws area of Central Darfur State, killing approximately forty civilians. Prior to that, in late December 2025, Niالا market in South Darfur State was bombed, including the fuel market that supplies the city and surrounding areas with essential needs—a purely civilian facility devoid of any military character. These incidents were preceded by the large-scale atrocity committed in the Katila area of South Darfur State, where no fewer than 105 civilians were killed and dozens injured, in one of the deadliest attacks during the recent period.

Taken together, these incidents constitute an accumulated record of the systematic dismantling of any commitment to de-escalation and demonstrate that the ceasefire advocated by international actors, within the framework of what is known as the “Quartet,” has been effectively undermined through deliberate actions on the ground. This reality is further reinforced by its concurrence with explicit political rhetoric entrenching the option of war, as General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan issued repeated statements rejecting any commitment to the ceasefire following his return from a visit to Türkiye and meetings with Islamist figures associated with the former regime. The situation is rendered even more dangerous by the growing public activity of Islamist movement elements engaged in open incitement and threats, and their explicit rejection of international initiatives, reviving a discourse of open war and undermining any genuine prospect for de-escalation.

From the perspective of international humanitarian law, civilians, hospitals, medical personnel, and markets enjoy clear and unambiguous protection. The deliberate targeting of a hospital and a civilian market constitutes a grave breach of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution enshrined in Additional Protocol I. Such acts may also amount to war crimes under Article 8 of the