Nyala

So, these were civilian vendors selling goods to paramilitary.

The RSF fighters who were in the area, more than 100 people were killed and 113 others were wounded on Monday in a Sudanese military drone strike on a busy market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur province, said emergency lawyers.

And this is a rights group that's tracking the violence in Sudan.

The group said that many of those killed and wounded were women and children.

At least 20 people got killed.

Dozens got injured in airstrikes on Nayala City in Sudan's south of the first state.

Strikes reportedly hit crowded night market and paramilitary RSF positions and student housing complex as well.

So Sudan's current situation is still dire.

I heard more about this latest attack from our Africa correspondent, Barbara Pletasha, who's in Nairobi.

What we understand is that there was a drone strike or maybe a number of drone strikes in the north of Nyala on Monday night.

Now, Nyala is essentially the stronghold of the RSF, but it's also their de facto capital.

They have a civilian government that is aligned to them, and they also have training centers there for their soldiers.

So it's very much an RSF space.

Now, it would be bad enough if Khalifa was just a run-of-the-mill regional administrator.

but he was also a member of the presidential council in the RSF-led parallel government based in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state.

The fact that such an important official, who has presumably worked alongside RSF leader Hameti as a member of that presidential council, has left the group shows that everyone, not just those in the military, can see the writing on the wall.

Their best shot at surviving this war is to abandon the RSF for the SAF, which is currently welcoming defectors with open arms and pardons for war crimes.

Because while the paramilitaries may be on the back foot in Kordofan, they're still advancing in other areas, not least thanks to their outside backers.

DOWN NOT OUT Now, in our introduction, we mentioned that the RSF is a UAE-backed paramilitary group, and while that is accurate, it doesn't fully capture the lengths that the UAE is willing to go to to support the paramilitaries.

UN experts found that between January and July, Boeing and Ilyushin transport planes were landing at night in Nyala, carrying fighters, foreign mercenaries, drones, and weapons.

The same report found that a UAE-based firm had hired a Colombian mercenary group known as Desert Wolves, which has fought alongside the RSF, operated drones with the group, and even participated in the siege of Al-Fasha, which you'll remember is where the RSF literally committed genocide.

And it also complicates because the RSF now created a parallel government in Darfur.

And there's no appetite after Al-Fashir, you know, there's no appetite for countries or international bodies or anything to even entertain the idea of recognizing this RSF government in Nyala.

So Al-Fashir kind of changed things a lot.

So, you know, you're very correct in, you know, pointing to Al-Fashir as kind of a turning point within the war.