The area has been a major battleground between the army and the paramilitaries for months, and communications lines with the rest of the world have been mostly cut off.
According to the Emergency Lawyers human rights group, which has documented abuses since the start of the war two years ago, the attack on the two villages in North Kordofan “killed 18 civilians and wounded dozens.”
The wounded were transferred to the state capital of El-Obeid for treatment.
Tolls are nearly impossible to independently verify in Sudan, with many medical facilities forced out of service and limited media access.
Since the RSF lost control of the capital Khartoum to the army in March, it has focused its attacks in the west of the country, where it controls much of the vast Darfur region.
Both sides have faced accusations of war crimes during the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.14 more terrorists neutralised as infiltration bid foiled: ISPR
Security forces have thwarted yet another terrorist infiltration attempt in the Sambaza area of Balochistan’s Zhob district, eliminating 14 terrorists, the military’s media wing said .Three soldiers and a woman were martyred, while three others, including two soldiers, sustained injuries, police and rescue officials said on Saturday.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the latest action brings the total number of terrorists killed in the last two days to 47, following successful operations by security forces in Sambaza. This adds to the earlier neutralisation of 33 militants.
“Following the successful engagements by the security forces in the general area Sambaza, Zhob district, on Aug 7-8 night, during which 33 Khwarij were sent to hell; on the night of Aug 8-9, a deliberate sanitisation operation was conducted in the surrounding areas of Sambaza along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,” the ISPR said.
“During the conduct of the operation, 14 more Indian sponsored Khwarij were hunted down and successfully neutralised. Weapons, ammunition and explosives were also recovered from the killed Khwarij,” the ISPR said in a statement.
“The number of Khwarij killed in two days anti-infiltration operation has risen to 47,” it said, adding that the security forces “remain committed to securing the nation’s frontiers and thwarting attempts at sabotaging peace, stability and progress of Pakistan”.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday praised the security forces for eliminating 47 militants during the last two days.
The president observed that it was the biggest success of the security forces, the President’s Secretariat said in a statement, according to APP.
He reiterated the government’s resolve to eradicate terrorism, stressing that the nation stands united behind the security forces in their fight against militancy.
PM Shehbaz also praised the forces’ timely actions, which successfully foiled the militants’ infiltration attempt. “The entire nation is standing with the security forces in the fight against terrorism,” he said, reaffirming his commitment to the eradication of terrorism in all its forms from Pakistan, the PM Office said.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also paid tribute to the security forces, commending their professionalism and swift actions.
“The nation looks with admiration at the successes of the security forces against the terrorists of the Indian conspiracy. The security forces have brought the Indian-sponsored terrorists involved in spreading chaos in Balochistan to an exemplary end,” he said in a post on X.
In May, the government officially designated all terrorist organisations operating in Balochistan as “Fitna al-Hindustan”, aiming to highlight India’s alleged role in fomenting instability and violence in the region.
In a series of militant attacks across Lakki Marwat district, three soldiers and a woman were martyred, while three others, including two soldiers, sustained injuries, police and rescue officials said on Saturday.
The first incident took place on Friday evening in the Tatta Bashikhel area, where Merajuddin, a clerk in the Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan, who had been on leave for the past week, was attacked.
“The FC official and his cousin Fareedullah were sitting outside their home when two armed suspects wearing masks suddenly appeared from the eastern side,” a police official said, quoting an FIR.
The attackers opened fire as Meraj and Fareed attempted to flee towards the house. Meraj’s wife, Nusrat Bibi, rushed out upon hearing the gunshots and attempted to shield her husband, but was also gunned down by the assailants.
Both Meraj and Nusrat were gravely wounded, and the FC personnel succumbed to his injuries on the spot, while his wife died en route to a hospital in Bannu.
Following the attack, a large police contingent was dispatched to the rural area to search for the assailants.
In another attack on Saturday, a soldier of the Frontier Corps, Sepoy Jehangir Khan, was martyred in the Mir Hazar Khanzadkhel area.
According to officials, Jehangir and his cousin Asmatullah were grazing cattle when two armed motorcyclists wearing masks opened fire on them. Jehangir was killed on the spot and his cousin was injured. The body and the injured were later transferred to the District Headquarters Hospital at Tajazai.
In yet another attack, a former soldier of the Pakistan Army, Habibullah Khan, 55, was shot dead by a group of seven militants near a rainwater course in the Ghazikhel area. The attackers, who fled towards the Karmukhel Mountain, also took away an AK-47 assault rifle from the martyred soldier.
In a separate incident, two soldiers were injured when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED) near Abdulkhel on Saturday.
Officials said that the roadside bomb, planted by “terrorists from the Fitna al-Khawarij group”, exploded as the soldiers were on patrol. The injured soldiers, Mohammad Salim and Mohammad Malook, were immediately shifted to the Government City Hospital. Rescue 1122 dispatched medical teams and ambulances to the scene
Authorities later cordoned off the area and launched a combing operation in an effort to capture the attackers.
Bannu’s Regional Police Officer Sajjad Khan visited the Tatta Bashikhel area to offer his condolences to the family of the martyred FC official Merajuddin. He expressed his sorrow for the loss and assured the family that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“The martyred security personnel are the pride of the nation and the supreme sacrifices offered by them will not go in vain,” he said.
Mr Sajjad also expressed his heartfelt condolences and sympathies with the family of martyred policeman Rukh Niaz Khan in the Kalan Tughalkhel area of Bannu.
In Sudan’s war-scarred capital Khartoum, Red Crescent volunteers have begun the grisly task of exhuming the dead from makeshift plots where they were buried during the fighting so their families can give them a proper funeral.
Teams of workers in dust-streaked white hazmat suits comb vacant lots, looking for the spots where survivors say they buried their loved ones.
Mechanical diggers peel back layers of earth under the watchful eye of Hisham Zein Al-Abdeen, head of the city’s forensic medicine department.
“We’re finding graves everywhere – in front of homes, inside schools and mosques,” he said, surveying the scene.
Here, in the southern neighborhood of Al-Azhari, families buried their loved ones wherever they could, as fighting raged between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
When war broke out in April 2023, the RSF quickly swept through Khartoum, occupying entire districts as residents fled air and artillery bombardments and street fighting.
In March, the army and its allies recaptured the capital in a fierce offensive.
It is only now, after the front lines of the conflict moved elsewhere, that bereaved families can give their loved ones a proper burial.
“My daughter was only 12,” said Jawaher Adam, standing by a shallow makeshift grave, tears streaming down her face.
“I had only sent her out to buy shoes when she died. We couldn’t take her to the cemetery. We buried her in the neighborhood,” she said.
Months on, Adam has come to witness her daughter’s reburial – this time, she says, with dignity.
Each body is disinfected, wrapped and labelled by Red Crescent volunteers before being transported to Al-Andalus cemetery, 10 kilometers (six miles) away.
“It’s painful,” said Adam, “but to honor the dead is to give them a proper burial.”
Many of the war’s deadliest battlegrounds have been densely populated residential districts, often without access to hospitals to care for the wounded or count the dead.
That has made it nearly impossible to establish a firm death toll for the war.
Former US envoy Tom Perriello has said that some estimates suggest up to 150,000 people were killed in the conflict’s first year alone.
In the capital, more than 61,000 people died during the first 14 months of war – a 50 percent increase on the pre-war death rate – according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Of those deaths, 26,000 were attributed to violence.
At first glance, the vacant lot in Al-Azhari where Red Crescent volunteers are digging seems to be full of litter – pieces of wood, bricks, an old signpost.
Look more closely, however, and it becomes clear they have been placed in straight lines, each one marking a makeshift grave.
Volunteers exhumed 317 graves in that one lot, Zein Al-Abdeen said.
Similar mass graves have been uncovered across the capital, he said, with 2,000 bodies reburied so far.
But his team estimates there could be 10,000 bodies buried in makeshift graves across the city.
At the exhumation site, grieving mothers watch on silently, their hands clasped tightly to their chest.
They, like Adam, are among the lucky few who know where their loved ones are buried. Many do not.
At least 8,000 people were reported missing in Sudan last year, in what the International Committee of the Red Cross says is only “the tip of the iceberg.”
For now, authorities label unclaimed bodies, and keep their details on file.
With the bodies now exhumed, the community can have some degree of closure, and the vacant lot can be repurposed.
“Originally, this site was designated as a school,” said Youssef Mohamed Al-Amin, executive director of Jebel Awliya district.
“We’re moving the bodies so it can serve its original purpose.”
The United Nations estimates that up to two million people may return to Khartoum state by the end of the year – but much depends on whether security and basic services can be restored.
Before the war, greater Khartoum was home to nine million people, according to the UN Development Programme, but the conflict has displaced at least 3.5 million.
For now, much of the capital remains without power or running water, as hospitals and schools lie in ruins.
