On Thursday, December 4, 2025, the small town of Kalogi in Sudan’s South Kordofan state became the latest epicenter of a conflict that has gripped the nation for more than two years. In a series of drone strikes that have shocked the international community, a kindergarten and the nearby Kalogi Rural Hospital were hit repeatedly, killing 114 people—63 of them children—and injuring 35 others, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The attacks, which also targeted paramedics and rescuers as they attempted to move the wounded to safety, highlight the escalating brutality of Sudan’s ongoing civil war.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus condemned the strikes as “senseless,” citing the agency’s Attacks on Health Care monitoring system. “Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital,” he said in a statement posted to social media, as reported by South China Morning Post and The New York Times. The sequence of violence began with a drone strike on the kindergarten, followed by at least three strikes on the hospital, and a final attack as people rushed in to help the injured children.
Essam al-Din al-Sayed, head of the Kalogi administrative unit, told AFP that the strikes were carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu. The RSF, which did not respond to requests for comment, has been blamed for repeated atrocities as it pushes eastward from Darfur into the oil-rich Kordofan region. The army-aligned foreign ministry reported 79 deaths, while the African Union placed the toll at over 100, and the UN children’s agency confirmed that more than 10 children aged between five and seven were among the dead. The discrepancies in the numbers only underscore the chaos and lack of clear communication in the region, where independent verification remains difficult due to ongoing insecurity and restricted access.
Survivors of the Kalogi attack were transported to Abu Jebaiha Hospital for urgent treatment, and calls for blood donations and medical supplies went out immediately. Yet even as rescue efforts were underway, those trying to help were not spared. “Many of the injured were parents and others who had rushed to help the victims,” noted The New York Times, painting a grim picture of a community torn apart in moments.
The Kalogi massacre is not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of violence that has characterized Sudan’s civil war since it erupted in April 2023. The conflict pits the Sudanese army against the RSF, a paramilitary group that has its roots in the notorious Janjaweed militias of Darfur. In the two and a half years since fighting began, tens of thousands have been killed and nearly 12 million people have been displaced, according to United Nations estimates. The front lines, which once centered on the western Darfur region, have now shifted into central Kordofan, bringing new communities into the crosshairs.
Recent months have seen a particularly grim escalation. In late October 2025, the RSF captured El-Fasher, the army’s last stronghold in western Sudan, after an 18-month siege. The United Nations estimates that around 200,000 civilians were trapped in El-Fasher when the army withdrew. Advocacy groups and satellite imagery suggest that many were systematically killed, with thousands still unaccounted for and evidence of possible mass graves raising fears of genocide. The fall of El-Fasher was followed by a rapid RSF advance into Kordofan, with reports of mass killings, sexual violence, looting, and abductions trailing in their wake, as documented by AFP and NPR.
Volker Turk, the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, expressed deep alarm at the situation. “It is truly shocking to see history repeating itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in El Fasher,” he said, warning of another wave of atrocities amid a surge in fighting. The echoes of Darfur’s earlier genocide, which claimed at least 200,000 lives between 2003 and 2005, are impossible to ignore.
Humanitarian efforts in Sudan are straining under the weight of the crisis. Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, described Darfur as the “epicenter of suffering in the world right now” during an interview with NPR. Fletcher recounted his recent visit to the region, where he encountered checkpoints manned by child soldiers, widespread starvation, and survivors of sexual violence and torture. “We are making these brutal life-and-death choices every day about which lives to save, literally, which projects to cut, which projects to keep,” he explained. Funding shortfalls have exacerbated the crisis, with UN humanitarian work in Sudan currently only 32% funded. The United States, once a major donor, has cut back its foreign aid to Sudan this year, leaving aid workers to make impossible decisions about where to focus their limited resources.
The violence has not been limited to Kalogi or the Kordofan region. On the same day as the Kalogi attack, the World Food Programme reported an assault on a food convoy near Hamra El-Sheikh in North Darfur. One of the trucks, part of a 39-vehicle convoy delivering food to families displaced from El-Fasher, was attacked, its cabin destroyed and the driver seriously injured. Just a week earlier, an army drone strike on Kauda, the SPLM-N stronghold in South Kordofan, killed at least 48 people, as reported by the UN.
For many observers, the international response to Sudan’s crisis has been woefully inadequate. “Why world leaders have not paid more attention to the civil war in Sudan is the ‘billion dollar question,’” Fletcher remarked to NPR. He called on the United Nations Security Council and global powers to “wake up” and help stop the violence, emphasizing the need for accountability and an end to the flow of arms into the conflict. Fletcher also pointed to the role of social media and competing global crises, like the war in Gaza, in diverting attention from Sudan. “We need the world to act,” he said, warning that indifference and misinformation are allowing the suffering to continue unchecked.
Despite the horrors, Fletcher remains hopeful about the potential for humanitarian solidarity. “I refuse to believe that people have lost that sense of human solidarity and generosity,” he told NPR, urging renewed international engagement and support for those caught in the crossfire.
The drone strikes on Kalogi’s kindergarten and hospital are a devastating reminder of the war’s toll on Sudan’s most vulnerable. As the front lines shift and atrocities mount, the world faces a stark choice: to look away, or finally to act.
