Sudan drone attack on key hospital killed 64 people during Eid, WHO says
Written by BBC on March 23, 2026
Sudan’s army has denied it carried out a deadly attack on a major hospital on Friday night in a city in the west of the country held by its rivals, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said 64 people – including 13 children, two nurses and a doctor – had died in the strike on el-Daein Teaching Hospital and 89 others had been wounded.
“Enough blood has been spilled,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X, urging the warring parties to end the conflict, which started nearly three years ago.
The RSF said an army drone had hit the hospital in el-Daein, the capital of East Darfur state, on the day Muslims were marking the festival of Eid.
Sudan was plunged into a civil war in April 2023 when a vicious struggle for power broke out between the military and the RSF, who had once been allies after coming to power in a coup in 2021.
More than 150,000 people have since died in the conflict and about 12 million have fled their homes – nearly a third of the country’s population – in what the United Nations has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
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Police in Nigeria say 15 people have been arrested following allegations of sexual assault at a community festival in the southern Delta state. Videos circulated online showing young men openly attacking women who were on their own. The clips sparked widespread anger, leading to the hashtag #StopRapingWomen to trend on social media, and renewed calls for accountability over gender-based violence. Delta state police have rejected claims circulating online that the Alue-Do festival in Ozoro was a “rape festival”. Local spokesperson Bright Edafe told Channels TV on Monday that no formal report of rape had been made in connection with the festival. The videos, taken during the Alue-Do fertility festival in the city of Ozoro, show groups of young men chasing, stripping, grabbing and assaulting women in public spaces, in some cases while people are filming. The police spokesman described the scenes as “alarming, disgusting and embarrassing” and said they had arrested several suspects identified from the videos and transferred them to the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Edafe told Channels: “We have spoken to four girls and all of them said nobody raped them.” Among those detained is a community leader widely named as the organiser of the event. The police say investigations are continuing. Some witnesses, activists and residents say women were warned not to go out during parts of the festival, and that those seen outside were deliberately targeted. This has raised concerns that sexual violence may have been organised or tolerated under the cover of tradition. Rights groups say that even if it is not clear whether anyone was raped, the documented acts – including forced stripping, grabbing and public humiliation -constitute serious gender-based violence under Nigerian law. The King of Ozoro has rejected suggestions that the Alue-Do festival condones sexual assault, describing it as a fertility rite that was “misinterpreted and abused by some youths”. Traditional leaders also say that no rape occurred. They admit that two women were harassed, but stressing that such acts are criminal, not cultural. The Delta state government has backed this view, adding that no recognised festival in the state permits sexual assault and that any violence should be treated strictly as a crime. Nigeria’s First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, who has roots in Delta state, condemned the alleged assaults and urged security agencies to prosecute all offenders. In a signed statement, she said no culture justified violating women and girls, praised police for recent arrests, and encouraged victims to seek medical and psychological support.
