PORT SUDAN: A drone attack on an aid convoy in Sudan’s North Kordofan state killed one person and wounded several others, the UN’s humanitarian agency said, with local civilian organizations blaming paramilitaries.
The convoy was headed on Friday to an area near El-Obeid, a city under army control but encircled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for a year.
The army and the RSF have been at war since April 2023, with the conflict killing tens of thousands of people, displacing millions more and triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Denise Brown, said she came across the aftermath of the strike, including burning aid trucks, after visiting El-Obeid.
She said she was “deeply concerned” by the attack and called for the protection of humanitarian personnel, assets and supplies.
Emergency Lawyers, an independent organization documenting war crimes in Sudan, also said the convoy, contracted by the World Food Programme, had been attacked, and accused the RSF of carrying out the strike.
Sudan Doctors Network, a local civilian group documenting atrocities, also blamed the RSF. It said three people were wounded in the attack, which it called “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and amounts to a full-fledged war crime.”
“It undermines humanitarian efforts to deliver life-saving aid to civilians affected by the war,” it added.
More than 21 million people — nearly half of Sudan’s population — face high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the United Nations.
Fighting in Sudan is now concentrated in the Kordofan region, after the RSF took control of Darfur to the west. El-Obeid lies on the main road linking Darfur with the capital Khartoum.