Drone Strike on Saraf Omra, North Darfur — 22 Killed, 17 Wounded; Second Mass-Casualty Drone Attack on North Darfur Town in Two Months

A drone strike on Saraf Omra (Sarf Umra), North Darfur, killed 22 people and wounded 17 on May 24, 2026. Saraf Omra had already been struck by drones on March 26, 2026 — hitting the main market, government headquarters, and a fuel tanker — with additional casualties reported. The May 24 attack is the most lethal single strike on Saraf Omra to date, with 22 killed making it one of the month's highest-casualty single incidents in North Darfur. Saraf Omra is located approximately 180 km north of El Fasher in the Al-Malha region of North Darfur, adjacent to the trans-Saharan supply corridor that SAF's Wadi al-Atrun capture (May 19, 2026) sought to interdict. Attribution is contested in available sources: Wikipedia's 2026 Sudan timeline attributes the strike to RSF drones, but the location (RSF-held North Darfur, near the Libyan supply corridor) and the pattern of drone warfare in Darfur suggest possible SAF authorship consistent with SAF's ongoing Darfur aerial campaign. Sudan's intense drone war — which killed 880+ civilians between January and April 2026 alone per OHCHR, with over 80% of all conflict deaths attributable to drone strikes — makes attribution of individual strikes without video evidence increasingly difficult. No independent body has claimed definitive attribution for this specific attack.