GENEVA, March 24 - United Nations officials reported on Tuesday that the death toll from a drone strike on a Sudanese hospital has reached 70, after search-and-rescue teams recovered additional bodies from the rubble. The World Health Organization said the strike occurred on March 20 at Al Deain Teaching Hospital in East Darfur.
The WHO said the facility, which served as a referral hospital for over 2 million people, has been put out of operation by the attack. After further search-and-rescue efforts, an additional six bodies were identified, bringing the confirmed number of dead to 70, the WHO cting deputy representative to Sudan, Hala Khudari, told a briefing in Geneva. The number of people injured in the event has risen to 146, Khudari said.
Separately, a spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office said the aerial attack involved drones in an area controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, the militia faction that is fighting the Sudanese army in a civil war that began in April 2023. The U.N. rights office said it did not have enough evidence to attribute blame for the strike, but added that both sides in the conflict have used drones on civilian sites in actions that may amount to war crimes.
The U.N. rights office further noted that the use of drones in the conflict has been on the rise. It said that since the beginning of the year, over 500 civilians have been killed in such strikes, with the majority of those casualties occurring in the Kordofan region.
The loss of Al Deain Teaching Hospital removes a referral-level medical resource for a large population in East Darfur, and the WHO escription of the facility being out of operation underscores an immediate reduction in local medical capacity. The officials ccounts emphasize both the human toll - including women, children and medical personnel - and the broader operational impact on health services in the area.
U.N. agencies provided the casualty and operational figures at a Geneva briefing but did not assign responsibility for the attack. The human rights office reiterated its statement that, while the incident involved drones in territory controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, there is not yet sufficient evidence to determine which party is responsible. It also reiterated the assessment that drone strikes on civilian targets have been employed by both sides in the fighting.
Officials stressed that the confirmed fatalities and injuries reported to date reflect recovery and identification efforts following the March 20 strike. They also underlined that the broader pattern of drone usage has led to hundreds of civilian deaths this year, primarily in the Kordofan region, according to the U.N. rights office.