Even the places where the displaced gather offer no genuine safety
Em dois dias consecutivos, drones ceifaram a vida de aproximadamente setenta civis na região sudanesa de Cordofão — entre eles, oito crianças — em aldeias que serviam de refúgio para famílias deslocadas pela guerra. O ataque é mais um capítulo de um conflito que já dura quatro anos entre as forças militares e as Forças de Apoio Rápido paramilitares, tendo deslocado onze milhões de pessoas e matado mais de duzentos mil. A escalada da guerra por drones revela uma lógica cruel: quando os exércitos se desgastam no terreno, a morte passa a ser administrada à distância, alcançando até os lugares onde os mais vulneráveis julgavam estar a salvo.
- Setenta civis mortos em dois dias — incluindo oito crianças — em zonas de deslocamento que deveriam ser refúgio, não alvos.
- Os ataques a Kadam e Al-Murra expõem uma realidade perturbadora: não existe lugar seguro para os onze milhões de deslocados internos do Sudão.
- A guerra por drones intensifica-se à medida que ambos os lados preservam forças terrestres e delegam a morte a máquinas que cruzam o país sem fronteiras militares definidas.
- Entre janeiro e abril, a ONU documentou pelo menos 880 mortes civis causadas por drones — um ritmo que transforma o céu num campo de batalha permanente.
- A OIM evacuou 160 pessoas de Al-Murra na mesma semana do ataque, num esforço de resposta que sublinha tanto a urgência como os limites da ação humanitária num conflito desta escala.
Dois ataques de drones em dias consecutivos mataram cerca de setenta pessoas na região de Cordofão, no Sudão, segundo relatos de uma organização de direitos humanos e de um responsável local. As vítimas encontravam-se em zonas para onde famílias tinham fugido à procura de abrigo.
No sábado, um drone atingiu a aldeia de Kadam, no Cordofão Ocidental, matando dez pessoas — oito crianças e duas mulheres. A organização Emergency Lawyers, que documenta o conflito sudanês de forma independente, descreveu as vítimas como pessoas que tentavam escapar à violência no Cordofão do Sul. O grupo não identificou qual das partes em conflito executou o ataque.
No dia anterior, um líder tribal comunicou à imprensa internacional que um drone das Forças de Apoio Rápido atingiu a aldeia de Al-Murra, no Cordofão do Norte, matando cinquenta e sete pessoas. Na mesma semana, a Organização Internacional para as Migrações evacuou cento e sessenta pessoas da aldeia devido a ameaças à segurança.
Os ataques refletem uma tendência crescente: com as forças terrestres desgastadas em ambos os lados, a guerra por drones tornou-se a tática dominante. Entre janeiro e abril, a ONU documentou pelo menos 880 mortes civis causadas por este tipo de ataque. O conflito, agora no quarto ano, já matou mais de duzentos mil pessoas e deslocou onze milhões — a maior crise humanitária do mundo, segundo a ONU. Kadam e Al-Murra mostram que mesmo os lugares de refúgio deixaram de oferecer qualquer segurança real.
Two drone strikes across Sudan's Kordofan region in consecutive days have killed approximately seventy people, according to reports released this week by a human rights organization and a local official. The attacks struck civilian areas where families had fled seeking shelter from the broader conflict consuming the country.
On Saturday, a drone struck the village of Kadam in Western Kordofan, killing ten people—eight of them children and two women. According to Emergency Lawyers, an independent organization documenting Sudan's conflict, these victims were attempting to escape violence in Southern Kordofan. The group described the strike as an extension of the war into zones where the displaced have sought refuge, areas with no active military operations. Emergency Lawyers did not identify which warring faction carried out the attack.
A day earlier, on Friday, a tribal leader reported to the international press that a separate drone strike hit the village of Al-Murra in Northern Kordofan, killing fifty-seven people. This attack, the leader said, was carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The United Nations' International Organization for Migration announced separately that it had evacuated one hundred sixty people from Al-Murra during the same week due to security threats.
These strikes reflect a broader pattern in Sudan's war: as ground forces on both sides have been depleted and worn down, drone warfare has become the dominant tactic. Both the regular military and the Rapid Support Forces now conduct strikes across the country without committing troops to frontline positions. The toll has been staggering. Between January and April alone, the United Nations documented at least eight hundred eighty civilian deaths from drone attacks.
The conflict itself has now entered its fourth year, a grinding civil war between the military and the paramilitary forces that has killed more than two hundred thousand people overall. The displacement is almost incomprehensible in scale: eleven million people have fled their homes, making this what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Families who escape one zone of fighting find themselves vulnerable in another. The attacks on Kadam and Al-Murra show that even the places where the displaced gather offer no genuine safety.
Citações Notáveis
The attack represents an extension of violence into zones where the displaced seek refuge, in areas with no active military operations— Emergency Lawyers, independent conflict documentation organization
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does drone warfare seem to be replacing ground combat here?
Both sides have been fighting for years now. Their armies are exhausted, their soldiers depleted. Drones let them strike anywhere in the country without risking what's left of their forces. It's a way to keep fighting when you can't afford to lose more people.
And the civilians in these villages—were they caught between the two sides, or targeted deliberately?
That's the question no one can fully answer. Emergency Lawyers said the strike on Kadam hit a civilian zone with no military activity. The tribal leader blamed the paramilitaries for Al-Murra. But in a war this fragmented, the distinction between military and civilian space has almost dissolved.
Eleven million displaced people. That's roughly the population of a major city, all homeless.
Yes. And they're not safe anywhere. They flee one region for another, and the drones follow. The UN had to evacuate people from Al-Murra the same week it was struck. There's nowhere left to run.
What does the international community do when the death toll from drones alone reaches nearly nine hundred in four months?
Document it. Announce it. Keep counting. But the war continues. The drones keep flying. The displacement keeps growing.