KADUGLI, November 3 — At least 16 civilians were killed and dozens wounded on Tuesday when a drone struck a fuel station in Al-Abbasiya Tagali, in Sudan's South Kordofan state, while people were waiting to buy fuel, multiple local sources told the Sudan Now news outlet.

Source: Sudan Now

The strike hit the Nawafil fuel station and started a large fire that destroyed the station and burned several vehicles, the sources said. The wounded were taken to hospitals for treatment. No names or ages of the dead were released in the reporting available on Tuesday night.

Source: Sudan Now

A second drone hit Rashad — and the RSF has said nothing

A second drone targeted a fuel station in nearby Rashad at around the same time, according to the same local sources. No casualties were reported there, although the facility was damaged. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group fighting Sudan's army for control of the country, had issued no public statement on either attack in the information available on Tuesday night.

Source: Sudan Now

Two different tolls — and no independent verification

Local sources attributed the Al-Abbasiya Tagali attack to the RSF, but Sudan Now itself stressed that both the casualty toll and responsibility for the strike could not be independently verified. A second account of Tuesday's South Kordofan reporting, in the Foreign Exchanges world roundup published early on Wednesday, put the toll lower — at least seven people killed and 36 wounded — and likewise described the strike as only 'likely' to have been carried out by the RSF. The two counts cannot both be complete, and Awaaz Punjab reports both, attributed, rather than choosing one.

Source: Foreign Exchanges world roundup, November 3, 2026

Background: Kordofan's drone war is reaching the fuel queue

Sudan has been at war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF. South Kordofan, centred on the Nuba Mountains with its capital at Kadugli, is contested ground: the RSF and its ally, the SPLM-N faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, hold parts of the state, and Sudan Now notes that the region has seen repeated drone strikes, with fuel facilities, roads and other infrastructure increasingly exposed to long-range attacks. For civilians, a fuel station is not a military target in any ordinary sense — it is where transport, generators and water pumps are fed in a region where shortages are already severe.

Source: Sudan Now (context)

Tuesday's strike fits a pattern the United Nations has already condemned. The UN human rights chief documented at least 306 people killed by drone strikes in just three weeks of October, and UN reporting on El Obeid, the North Kordofan capital, has warned of a drone war putting civilians at grave risk. Across the war as a whole, figures cited from the World Health Organization in regional reporting put deaths at at least 40,000, with roughly 12 million people displaced.

Source: UN reporting, as covered by Awaaz Punjab; WHO figures via regional reporting

The UN's warning about Sudan's drone war — 306 deaths documented in three weeks of October — was reported by this desk last month. Read the earlier report: UN condemns Sudan drone war

What happens next

Expect the toll to be revised: in earlier Sudan drone strikes the first local counts have repeatedly risen as hospitals and families reported in, and there is no independent access to Al-Abbasiya Tagali to settle the figure. Watch for a first RSF or army statement, for any UN or African Union reaction, and for whether fuel stations — now hit twice in one day in South Kordofan — suspend operations, which would deepen the region's transport and supply crisis within days.

Source: Sudan Now; Foreign Exchanges