Drones Killed 30 Civilians in an Abyei Market

A market. Food stalls, women selling, children running between the crates. On October 19, in Amiet, in the disputed Abyei region, drone strikes turned a place of daily life into a charnel house. At least 30 people were killed and 59 wounded, according to the provisional toll confirmed by the United Nations. The number will likely rise. Thirty lives, in broad daylight, for nothing.

Let us ask the question no one in power wants to hear: who sent these machines, and who will answer for this massacre? As we write, no one has been named. Meanwhile, families are burying their loved ones without knowing whom to demand justice from.

We must measure what is happening in Abyei. This territory, caught between Sudan and South Sudan, has never settled its status since the separation in 2011. The referendum provided for under the 2005 agreement never took place. The communities who live there, mainly the Ngok Dinka and the Misseriya, have been fighting for decades over land, water points and seasonal migration routes. Until now, these tensions were local, brutal but contained. A month before the Amiet strikes, intercommunal clashes in the same sector had already killed 124 people and wounded 40.

Today, the Sudanese civil war, which pits the regular army against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has crossed Abyei's internal border and left its corpses there. During a Security Council meeting in New York, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Guang Cong, noted this shift and called for a "prompt and independent" investigation to establish responsibility. We welcome this demand. But an investigation that never concludes is just a polite way of doing nothing.

We must also say what Abyei's position makes possible. The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), deployed since 2011, is meant to protect the population. Yet this territory also attracts armed groups and criminal networks, which find routes, resources and near-total impunity there. When a peacekeeping mission finds itself in the middle of a war it cannot stop, the question is no longer merely technical. It becomes political: for whom are we working, and whom are we really protecting?

At the same time, international justice is knocking on another door. The Sudanese army has arrested Ahmed Haroun, former president of Omar al-Bashir's party and former governor of South Kordofan, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on 22 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. This man had already been arrested in April 2019, after Bashir's fall. He was then released. How much longer must we wait before men accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing truly answer before a court? Darfur saw villages razed, women raped by the dozens, entire populations driven from their land. Twenty years later, those responsible for these crimes still move freely between Khartoum and the corridors of power.

This story belongs to no single country or single war. It is the story of an Africa where impunity has become policy. States that massacre their own populations know they can count on the slowness of institutions, on the strategic interests of foreign powers, and on the silence of their neighbors. Every commander who escapes justice sends a message to the next one: you can kill, the bill will never come.

We refuse this fatalism. African countries show that another path exists. Since independence, Botswana has built a reputation for stability and transparent governance, relying on solid institutions and rigorous management of its resources. Mauritius has built an open economy, a credible rule of law and peaceful transfers of power. Senegal, in 2024, proved that an organized civil society and an independent judiciary can prevent a president from seizing an election. These examples are not perfect. Yet they prove one essential thing: peace and prosperity are not Western dreams. They are outcomes built with rules, checks and balances, and citizens who demand accountability.

So what must be done? First, the investigation into Amiet must be conducted independently, with its findings published and those responsible clearly identified, whether they are army commanders, RSF leaders or armed local actors. Without names, there is no justice. Second, the African Union's Peace and Security Council must stop settling for communiqués. It must demand the withdrawal of armed groups from Abyei, support a robust protection mandate for UNISFA, and freeze the assets and impose travel bans on commanders identified in the violence. The drones that killed at Amiet come from a supply chain that crosses several continents: supplier states must be required to publish their arms contracts and respect embargoes. Finally, cooperation with the ICC must be unconditional. Arresting Ahmed Haroun is a first step. Transferring him to The Hague, without political negotiation, would be a second.

And we, African citizens, what must we demand? We must tell our governments not to vote with silence when a neighboring people is dying. We must support the journalists, lawyers and human rights organizations who document crimes at the risk of their lives. We must refuse to let our countries become playgrounds for foreign rivalries, whether they come from Washington, Paris, Ankara, Abu Dhabi or Moscow. Those who sell weapons or war technology to generals on campaign are not partners. They are accomplices.

Thirty dead in Amiet. Fifty-nine wounded. An investigation promised. How many more markets destroyed, villages burned, families shattered, before we stop counting the victims and start demanding accountability? Abyei does not ask for compassion. Abyei demands justice, and justice begins with a name, a trial and a sanction. We Africans must be the first to demand it. No one else will do it for us.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL