The shelling carried out by Sudanese army forces on Wednesday, April 8, targeting Kutum locality in North Darfur State and striking a wedding celebration, resulted in the deaths of dozens, including women and children.
The Sudanese army launched an airstrike targeting a wedding celebration in Kutum locality while dozens of civilians were gathered at a civilian site with no military activity in the vicinity, causing dozens to be killed and wounded and destroying a school adjacent to the gathering.
Rising Death Toll
After a medical source confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the shelling killed 12 people, including children and female secondary school students, in addition to other dead and injured, the Darfur Victims Advocacy Organization also confirmed the incident in a statement.
It said that “eyewitnesses informed the organization that a drone belonging to the Sudanese army targeted a house in the Al-Salama neighborhood next to Al-Um Basic Girls’ School at around 4:00 p.m. local Sudan time on Wednesday, April 8,” adding that “the drone approached from the northeastern side of the city, and the strike killed around 12 people, including children and women.”
However, other reports confirmed that the death toll had risen the following day. The Sudanese newspaper Al-Jamahir revealed that the shelling targeting the city of Kutum resulted in 57 deaths, including 17 children, and confirmed that women accounted for the largest proportion of the victims in the strike that hit the traditional wedding celebration.
The newspaper said that the occasion was the “henna of the groom,” the marriage celebration held one day before the bride and groom move into their marital home according to Sudanese traditions. However, the celebration turned into a mass massacre whose full scale has yet to be determined, as search and rescue teams continue to recover victims’ bodies from beneath the rubble and search for survivors, while many of the injured remain in critical condition due to the severity of their wounds.
Other shelling operations carried out by the Sudanese army in the current period have also targeted civilian facilities and markets, including Al-Daein Hospital and the Lagawa market in South Kordofan State, raising concerns over the deliberate and continued targeting of civilians by the attack drones recently acquired by the Sudanese army.
“Silence Is a Disgrace”
For his part, Khalid Omar Youssef, a leader in the Somoud Alliance—a coalition of political, civilian, and revolutionary forces aimed at ending the devastating war ongoing since mid-April 2023—commented that the army’s continued shelling of civilians is “a disgrace.”
Youssef said in a statement posted on the X platform, commenting on the strike: “The armed forces’ aircraft launched a criminal attack yesterday evening that struck a wedding celebration in the Al-Salama neighborhood of Kutum in North Darfur, claiming the lives of a number of innocent civilians, especially women and children.”
He added: “The shocking attached video documents this incident, and silence over it is a disgrace beyond disgrace. This war, ignited by the terrorist Islamic Movement and sustained by investment in its continuation, has crossed every red line in its criminality, and it will lead to the fragmentation of the country and threaten peace and security in Sudan and its regional and international surroundings. This criminality must stop now, and everyone who has stained their hands with the blood of innocents without mercy or compassion must be held accountable.”
The Sudanese Congress Party also condemned the army’s strike on the wedding celebration, stating in its declaration: “We hold the army fully legally and morally responsible for this pure blood spilled in Kutum.”
It added: “The Sudanese Congress Party deeply mourns the horrific crime committed by a drone belonging to the Sudanese Armed Forces on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, through its direct targeting of civilian facilities in the city of Kutum in North Darfur State. This treacherous bombardment resulted in the fall of a number of martyrs and wounded among unarmed civilian women and men, including children and women, in a flagrant violation of all international norms, international humanitarian law, and the values of human conscience.”
The statement continued: “The repeated air and drone bombardment of populated areas and vital facilities proves beyond any doubt the attacking forces’ utter disregard for the lives of Sudanese citizens, turning civilians into military targets in a conflict in which they have no stake. We affirm that targeting civilian facilities and killing children constitutes a full-fledged war crime that is not subject to any statute of limitations, and its perpetrators and those who ordered it must face international justice.”
The Sudanese Congress Party renewed its call for accountability for those responsible for war crimes in Sudan: “We see the necessity for the Independent Fact-Finding Committee established by the Human Rights Council to fulfill its role in investigating and establishing the details of this massacre and all the war crimes of the cursed April 15, and to bring the perpetrators to accountability.
We appeal to the international community and the Security Council to take decisive and effective measures to protect civilians in Sudan, as it has become clear that defenseless innocents—women, children, and the elderly—are the ones paying the price for the continuation of this war.”
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