The morning light over central Sudan carries a familiar softness, spreading across open plains where roads stretch long and unguarded. For families fleeing the nearby fighting, that light once suggested distance — a chance to move away from danger, to place motion between themselves and the sounds of war. Vehicles rolled forward carrying children, elders, and the fragments of daily life gathered in haste.

Along a road near the town of Rahad in North Kordofan, that movement was interrupted. A drone strike hit a vehicle transporting civilians who were attempting to escape clashes in the area, according to the Sudan Doctors Network. At least twenty-four people were killed, among them eight children and two infants. The road, intended as a passage toward safety, became a place of sudden stillness.

Those who survived spoke of confusion rather than chaos. Dust hung briefly in the air. The horizon remained unchanged. What had shifted was the presence of those who moments earlier shared the same cramped space, the same intention to leave danger behind. Wounded passengers were taken to nearby medical facilities already strained by shortages and the steady flow of displaced people.

The attack came amid expanding use of drones in the conflict that has gripped Sudan since 2023, pitting the Sudanese Armed Forces against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. In North Kordofan, both civilians and aid movements have increasingly found themselves exposed along open roads, where distance offers no guarantee of protection.

Medical groups and rights organizations have described the strike as part of a wider pattern placing civilians at heightened risk, particularly those already displaced by fighting. For families on the move, the act of leaving has become its own uncertainty, where even escape carries danger.

In nearby towns and temporary shelters, news of the strike traveled quietly. People paused, recalculated routes, and weighed the meaning of movement itself. In places where conflict redraws the map daily, roads no longer promise relief — only the next stretch of vulnerability.

Authorities and humanitarian monitors say investigations are ongoing. The Sudan Doctors Network continues to document civilian casualties as fighting spreads across central regions, underscoring the toll borne by those who are neither armed nor aligned, only moving.

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Sources (Media Names Only)

Reuters Associated Press Al Jazeera The Guardian Sudan Doctors Network