Dozens dead, including children, in Sudan drone attack
A drone strike carried out by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said, a day after a World Food Program aid convoy was targeted.
The Sudan Doctors Network, which monitors the ongoing war in the country, said that the attack by Rapid Support Forces on Saturday occurred near the city of Rahad in North Kordofan state. The group said in a statement that the vehicle was carrying displaced people fleeing clashes in the Dubeiker region. Two babies were among the dead children.
In the statement, it was stated that many people were injured and taken for treatment in Rahad, which, like many regions in the Kordofan region, suffers from a serious shortage of medical supplies.
The doctors’ group called on the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly responsible for these violations.”
There has been no comment yet from RSF, which has been fighting against the Sudanese army for control of the country for nearly three years.
Sudan descended into chaos in April 2023, when a power struggle between the army and the RSF erupted into open conflict in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere in the country, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions.
Denise Brown, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said that an attack on a WFP aid convoy in North Kordofan state on Friday killed one person and injured many others.
Brown said the convoy was on its way to distribute “life-saving food aid” to displaced people in the city of Obeid in North Kordofan when it was hit. He said the attack burned trucks and destroyed aid.
“Attacks on aid operations undermine efforts to reach people facing hunger and displacement,” the statement said.
Brown also said there was a drone strike near a WFP facility in Blue Nile state last week, injuring a WFP worker.
Emergency Lawyers, an independent group that documents atrocities in Sudan, blamed RSF for the attack, while Sudan Doctors Network called it “a clear violation of international humanitarian law and amounting to a full-fledged war crime.”
US advisor for African and Arab affairs Massad Boulos condemned the attack on X and called for those responsible to be held accountable.
“The destruction of food for people in need and the killing of humanitarian workers is sickening,” he said.
“The Trump Administration has zero tolerance for the destruction of life and US-funded aid; we demand accountability.”
Britain’s Minister for International Development and Africa, Jenny Chapman, described the attack on the WFP convoy as “disgraceful”.
“Civilians are starving to death,” he wrote in X on Saturday.
“Aid workers and humanitarian operations delivering vital food should never be targeted.”
Kordofan has become a flashpoint in the war in recent months, and the army managed to break the RSF siege of two major cities in the region earlier this year.
The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people so far, according to UN figures, but aid groups say this is an underestimate and the real number could be many times higher.
It has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people forced to flee their homes. This fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine, which is still spreading as the war shows no signs of abating.
In a report published on Thursday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine in two more areas in Darfur and warned that acute malnutrition is expected to worsen in 2026.
