At least 28 people were killed and dozens more wounded after drone strikes hit a crowded market in central Sudan’s Kordofan region, a rights group said Monday, as the country’s war approaches its third year.

Emergency Lawyers, an organization that monitors violence against civilians, said drones bombed a market in the Sudri locality of North Kordofan province on Sunday while it was busy with shoppers. The group warned the death toll could rise.

“The repeated use of drones to target populated areas shows a grave disregard for civilian lives and signals an escalation that threatens what remains of daily life in the province,” the group said in a statement. It called for an immediate halt to drone attacks by both sides in the conflict.

The strike follows a series of recent incidents in North Kordofan. More than a week ago, a drone attack near the city of Rahad struck a vehicle carrying displaced families, killing at least 24 people, including eight children. A day earlier, a World Food Program aid convoy was targeted.

Fighting between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into full-scale war in April 2023 and has since devastated large parts of the country. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 40,000 people have been killed and more than 12 million displaced. Aid groups caution that the true death toll may be significantly higher due to limited access to remote and conflict-affected areas.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights recently described the Kordofan region as “volatile and a focus of hostilities,” as both sides compete for control of strategically important territory.

Both the army and the RSF have faced allegations of serious abuses. In a report released Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Office said more than 6,000 people were killed over three days in late October when the RSF carried out what it described as “a wave of intense violence … shocking in its scale and brutality” in the Darfur region.

The RSF’s offensive to seize the city of el-Fasher, formerly a military stronghold, included widespread atrocities that may amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, according to the United Nations.