A drone strike near a market in southern Sudan on Sunday evening killed 80 people, mostly commuters catching rides home.

Ahmed Wadi, a witness, said the attack in the town of al-Dibab in West Kordofan state left “50 bodies who I helped bury, one of them my own brother Mohamed”.

Using a satellite internet connection to circumvent a communications blackout, Wadi also said 47 other people were transported to the nearest town, al-Mujlad. A medical source, requesting anonymity for his safety, said 30 of them died from their injuries.

The medic said: “A total of 80 people were killed in the drone strike on al-Dibab, and another drone strike on al-Mujlad injured four who are currently being treated.”

Wadi said the drone struck twice, 10 minutes apart, “on a transport hub where people gather to travel back to their villages after the market day ends”.

The attack is one of the deadliest single strikes since war broke out in April 2023 when a power struggle between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF), headed by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, erupted into violence in the capital, Khartoum.

The RSF-declared administration, known as Tasis, accused the army of carrying out Sunday’s strike. All of West Kordofan state is under RSF control.

Sudan has witnessed an escalation in the use of drones in the war. Between January and April, drone strikes accounted for at least 880 civilian deaths, more than 80% of all conflict-related civilian deaths in Sudan.

After drone strikes on a busy livestock market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, on Friday, the SAF said they had killed RSF fighters, but the RSF accused the military of killing 30 civilians.

The fighting in Sudan has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more. It has been fuelled by foreign powers with vested interests who are supporting sides in the conflict.

Last week, Rosemary DiCarlo, the undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs at the UN, warned the security council that the conflict and humanitarian crisis was deteriorating “with no breakthrough on the horizon”.

She said: “They [the warring parties] are not moving closer to dialogue. On the contrary, they seem to believe that they can make greater gains on the battlefield and that continued external support will allow them to pursue their objectives by force.”

AFP contributed to this report