PORT SUDAN, Sudan, Dec 18, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A drone attack on Wednesday killed eight people as they fled the besieged Sudanese city of Kadugli in South Kordofan state, the new epicentre of the country's long-running war, witnesses told AFP.

The strike was in Kurkal, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of state capital Kadugli, which is held by the army but has been surrounded by their foes the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for around 18 months.

"A drone struck some displaced people from Kadugli when they arrived in the village of Kurkal" where they had fled, said one eyewitness who left the state capital with the victims, adding that all those killed were women.

The source and a second eyewitness, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, recounted seeing eight bodies after the attack.

Since dislodging the army in October from the western city of El-Fasher, its last toehold in the Darfur region, the RSF has turned its sights to resource-rich Kordofan.

The region forms a crossroads between army-held territory in the north, including the capital Khartoum, and RSF-held Darfur in the west.

Communications in the area have been cut, and the United Nations declared a famine in Kadugli last month.

According to accounts gathered by AFP, many inhabitants of the city have resorted to foraging in the forest for nourishment.

The humanitarian situation is "extremely bad", a World Food Programme source told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that many residents had tried to leave, but poor security conditions made such departures dangerous.

On Monday and Tuesday, 460 people fled Kadugli due to growing insecurity, according to the International Organization for Migration.

And over the 10 days leading up to Tuesday, about 1,850 displaced people from South Kordofan, mostly women and children, arrived in the neighbouring army-controlled state of White Nile after walking for days "to flee RSF attacks on civilian areas", according to a local official.

The war in Sudan, which broke out in April of 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions more, and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.