A drone strike blamed on Sudan's Rapid Support Forces has killed 17 members of the family of a former paramilitary officer who defected to the army, witnesses and local officials said on Monday.
They said the attack took place late on Saturday night at the family home of Abu Aqla Kaikal in the village of Al Kahly Zeidan in Al Jazeera state south of Khartoum.
Among the dead was Mr Kaikal's younger brother, Azzam.
The brothers had served in Sudan Shield, an auxiliary force allied with the army against the RSF in a civil war now entering its fourth year.
Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, the army chief and Sudan's de facto leader, visited Al Kahly Zeidan on Sunday night to offer his condolences, the military-led Sovereign Council said in a statement, blaming the attack on the RSF.
It was not clear whether Abu Aqla Kaikal was in the house at the time of the attack. He also could not be seen in photos and video of Gen Al Burhan offering his condolences to the family.
The home was hit by projectiles launched from a drone, said the witnesses and officials. The RSF has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mr Kaikal, an experienced military commander, defected to the army in 2024 and went on to play a pivotal role in recapturing Al Jazeera state, Sudan's agricultural heartland, before pushing towards Khartoum.
His Sudan Shield fighters are now in Kordofan in western Sudan and Blue Nile in the south.
Mr Kaikal had been the most senior RSF commander to defect to the army until this month, when senior general Al Nour Ahmed Adam fled from the RSF-held western region of Darfur and joined the armed forces in northern Sudan.
Saturday's attack appeared to be a reprisal and may signal the start of targeted killings aimed at figures who shape the battlefield, such as Kaikal. Following his defection, Gen Adam was stripped of his rank and sentenced to death in absentia by a paramilitary court, according to an RSF statement.
The attack on the Kaikal family home also underlined the increasing use by both sides of long-range drones.
In the past, the two sides have occasionally targeted the seats of their rival administrations – Port Sudan, where the military-aligned government is based, and Nyala in Darfur, seat of the RSF-backed administration.
Besides the attack on the Kaikal family home, the latest drone missions blamed on the RSF took place on Friday and Saturday, according to the witnesses and officials. The targets included the radio and television station and army positions in the city of Al Obeid in Kordofan, as well as military installations in the greater Khartoum area.
In one attack, a car was hit in a military zone of the greater Khartoum area, killing its six occupants. Emergency Lawyers, a private Sudanese group that monitors the war, confirmed the attack on the car and the death toll. It said the RSF was responsible.
The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023, when months of tension between army chief Gen Al Burhan and RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo over their future in a democratic Sudan boiled over into open conflict in Khartoum before it swiftly spread.
The war has to date killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 13 million people and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with some 25 million – about half the population – facing hunger or food shortages.
Both Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo claim to be fighting for a democratic and prosperous Sudan but they are widely believed by opponents to be pursuing their goal of ruling the impoverished though resource-rich country.
Al Shafie Ahmed contributed reporting from Kampala, Uganda.
