A drone attack attributed to Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed at least 41 people in the Blue Nile region, which borders Ethiopia, according to the rights group Emergency Lawyers. The organisation, which documents developments in Sudan's civil war, said the strike on Friday hit a camp for displaced people in the Abu Shandi area of the state, in the country's southeast. Initial reports suggest most of the dead were women and children.

The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said it was "appalled by horrifying reports" of the attack. It added that the area had been "under sustained attack in recent weeks", displacing thousands of civilians and exposing many more to grave harm. The figures come from the rights group and initial reports; the sources do not indicate that they have been independently verified.

The attack is part of a war that began in 2023 between the Sudanese army and the RSF. Sources describe the conflict as a power struggle that erupted after the leaders of the two forces, who had previously carried out a coup together, fell out over how to share power. It has since killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than 14 million from their homes. The United Nations describes it as the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with millions of people in need of medical help.

The front lines have split the country broadly in two. The army controls much of the centre, east and north, including the capital, Khartoum, while the RSF is headquartered in the western region of Darfur and also holds areas in the south. Blue Nile, a state in the southeast on the Ethiopian frontier, lies between these zones of influence. Both sides have been accused of using drones, and both have been accused of war crimes. The UN has said the RSF's violence bears hallmarks of genocide, and the RSF is widely regarded as the more violent of the two forces.

Why this matters: strikes on camps for displaced people hit civilians who have already fled violence once, in areas where aid access is limited and humanitarian needs are acute. The use of relatively cheap drones has allowed both sides to strike far from the front lines, extending the danger to regions that had been seen as comparatively safer. The attack on Abu Shandi underlines the growing risk to civilians in Sudan's border areas as the war enters its fourth year.