An RSF drone strike kills four women in Damazin

A drone strike on homes and a mosque in the Hijra neighbourhood of Damazin killed at least four women on Wednesday and wounded dozens of civilians. The Associated Press attributed the strike to the Rapid Support Forces. Damazin is the capital of Blue Nile state, in south-eastern Sudan. The Washington Post carried the same toll. No RSF statement naming the target was included in those accounts.

The war between the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces began in April 2023. It has since split the country between an army that holds much of the north and east and a paramilitary force that holds much of Darfur and has pushed into central and southern states. Blue Nile has been fought over because it sits on the road and river links toward Ethiopia and South Sudan, and because both sides have recruited locally. A strike on a residential neighbourhood and a mosque is the pattern of the drone campaign both sides have run against towns they do not fully hold.

What is known about the strike

The place is specific: Hijra, inside Damazin, not an outlying garrison. The dead named by category are four women. The wounded are described as dozens of civilians. The targets described are houses and a mosque, which means the munition fell on a civilian block even if a fighter was the intended mark. AP did not name the women. It did not give a hospital count beyond the dozens wounded. Those gaps are ordinary in Blue Nile, where communications fail and access for reporters is limited, and they are why the toll should be read as a floor.

Drones have changed the geography of this war. A force that cannot drive a column into Damazin can still hit a neighbourhood if it has a launcher within range and a spotter, or a satellite picture. The RSF has used that method on army-held towns across the south and centre. The army has used it on RSF-held towns in Darfur. Wednesday's strike fits the first pattern, on AP's attribution. A confirmed strike on a mosque raises the legal question of distinction under the rules of war. Attribution in a wire story is not a court finding.

Blue Nile's place in the war

Blue Nile was a front in the earlier war between Khartoum and the SPLM-North, and the state has never been fully at peace. The current fighting sits on top of that older split. Local armed groups have picked sides, and civilians have already been displaced toward Ethiopia. A hit on the state capital, rather than on a village on the front, signals that Damazin itself is inside the drone envelope. Residents who had treated the city as a rear area now have a strike on a named neighbourhood.

The wider war is in its fourth year. Peace talks have stalled more than once. Neither side has taken the other's capital. The civilian toll is counted in the tens of thousands dead and in millions displaced, on figures humanitarian agencies have updated through 2025 and 2026. Wednesday's four women will be absorbed into that total unless their names are published. The neighbourhood name is the detail that keeps the strike from being only a line in a tally.

What to watch next

The next verifiable step is a name list from a hospital or from the state government, and a claim or denial from the RSF. Until then the record is the one AP and the Washington Post printed: four women dead, dozens wounded, homes and a mosque hit in Hijra, Damazin, on Wednesday, blamed on the Rapid Support Forces.