New Delhi, Dec. 7 -- KALOGI, South Kordofan - The children of Kalogi had gathered for morning lessons when the first drone appeared above the kindergarten, its mechanical hum barely audible over the chatter of young voices reciting the alphabet. What followed was a meticulously timed sequence of aerial slaughter that has left this remote town in Sudan's Sudan civil war reeling from one of the conflict's most barbaric episodes yet.

On Saturday morning, as families across Sudan prepared for another day of survival amid the 965th day of unrelenting conflict, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group unleashed a triple drone strike on civilian targets in Kalogi. The initial strike obliterated the town's only kindergarten, killing 33 ...