At least 12 people were killed on Thursday in an airstrike in Chad near the Sudanese border, a Chadian security source told AFP, with N’Djamena and Washington accusing the Sudanese army of carrying out attacks on neighbouring territory.
The conflict in Sudan has pitted the country’s army against its former allies the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, killing more than 11,000 civilians and forcing over 15 million to flee their homes, according to the UN.
Sudan shares a border with Chad, which the Sudanese army accuses of being aligned with the RSF, and nearly one million of those displaced have fled to Chad.
Sudan’s “air force targeted a fuel market where the RSF refuel. The strike killed 12 people and wounded seven,” a Chadian security source, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
The source said the strike took place in the Adikoun area near the border with Sudan.
Local Chadian media also attributed the attack to the Sudanese military.
But the Sudanese foreign ministry in a statement expressed its surprise at claims “that categorically attribute responsibility to the Sudanese Armed Forces before any professional and independent investigation into the circumstances of the incident”.
It added that it respected “the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the Republic of Chad”.
Last week, Chadian armed forces reported a drone strike, which caused no casualties, and said they suspected the Sudanese army.
The US embassy in Khartoum on Thursday condemned what it said were recent strikes by the Sudanese army inside Chadian territory.
“The violence must stop in Sudan and beyond. There is no military solution to this conflict and absolutely no justification for expanding the violence beyond Sudan’s borders,” US senior advisor for Arab and African affairs Massad Boulos wrote on X.
Washington on Monday proposed at the UN an expansion of an arms embargo on the Sudanese region of Darfur to cover all of Sudan, saying the nation’s brutal conflict risks regional expansion.
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