UNICEF says five children were killed in Nyala

UNICEF says five children were killed and two others were injured when a drone struck a market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, on 26 October 2026.

Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa, published the statement from Nairobi on 29 October 2026. UNICEF issued it that day, and UN News carried the same account. "Markets are places where families buy food and people work to make a living," she said. "A trip to the market should never cost a child their life."

Doctors Without Borders reported on 27 October 2026 that Nyala Teaching Hospital, which its teams support, had received the bodies of 36 people killed in the 26 October market attack, and that 21 of those bodies were wearing civilian clothing. The hospital teams reported seeing more than 150 wounded patients in the emergency room. Doctors Without Borders said a drone strike by the Sudanese Armed Forces hit the market that evening, and that a second strike hit a civilian neighborhood.

The Associated Press said on 28 October 2026 that it could not independently verify the wider tolls. Emergency Lawyers told the Associated Press that more than 100 people were killed and 113 were wounded, many of them women and children, and that a Sudanese military drone carried out the strike. The Sudan Doctors Network said on 28 October 2026 that at least 21 people were killed and more than 40 were wounded, and that the attack was shelling.

Her statement says that on 19 October 2026 it was reported that armed drone strikes killed at least 80 people, including women and children, in a busy market in Abyei. She gives that figure as a toll that was reported. Between January and September 2026, she said, more than 400 children were reported killed or injured in Sudan, and armed drone attacks caused a significant share of those casualties. The same statement says the strikes have damaged homes, schools, health facilities, water systems, and markets.

She said that after more than three years of conflict, children in Sudan need greater protection from violence. The statement does not name who flew the drone over the Nyala market.