Clashes in southern Sudan leave at least 21 dead, medical group says

CAIRO (AP) — Clashes in southern Sudan have killed at least 21 people, including women and children, a doctors' group said Friday.

Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks violence throughout the war in Sudan, said that the rebel group Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, or SPLM-N, launched an attack on Thursday in the areas of Debi and Luweri in the town of Kauda in South Kordofan.

Rebel leader Abdel Aziz al-Hilu has aligned his fighters with the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which has been battling the Sudanese military since 2023. The war killed at least 59,000 people , displaced some 13 million and pushed parts of the country into famine .

Al-Hilu’s group has been active in South Kordofan and joined a local government set up by the RSF . The group is a breakaway faction of the SPLM, the ruling party of neighboring South Sudan.

Thursday's attack was part of clashes that erupted between SPLM-N and the Otoro tribe, a minority group in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan.

The fighting came despite a ceasefire initiative backed by the RSF last month. The medical group said the attacks by al-Hilu's forces “constitute a clear violation of the agreement, a resumption of hostilities, and the targeting of civilians on an ethnic basis.”

Al-Hilu didn’t commit to the ceasefire agreement, and his forces launched attacks on 10 Otoro villages, displacing hundreds of civilians between Aug. 20 and 26, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a think tank, said in an analysis last week. It added that SPLM-N claimed in a video that it took control of Kauda.

Ali Mahmoud Ali, the group's Sudan analyst, said that the latest clashes risk bringing in more Nuba clans into the fight and could increase divisions across South Kordofan, where communities are facing an already dire humanitarian situation .

The group said it has recorded the killings of at least 158 people since violence erupted in March over land disputes.