The Saturday drone attack in central Sudan added to mounting pressure on international efforts to protect civilians and humanitarian deliveries as conflict between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces continues. The Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the war, said the RSF strike hit a vehicle transporting displaced families close to Rahad in North Kordofan province.
The doctors’ group said the vehicle was carrying people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area. It said at least 24 people died in the attack, including eight children, and that two of the children were infants, according to its statement. The group also said several other people were wounded and taken for treatment in Rahad.
In its statement, the Sudan Doctors Network said Rahad has severe shortages of medical supplies, a problem it said also affects other parts of the Kordofan region. It urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.” There was no immediate comment from the RSF.
The attack came a day after a World Food Programme convoy was targeted in North Kordofan. Denise Brown, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said the Friday drone attack killed one person and wounded several others. Brown said the convoy was heading to deliver “life-saving food assistance” to displaced people in the city of Obeid in North Kordofan when it was struck and that the attack burned the trucks and destroyed the aid.
Brown later condemned the targeting of aid operations, saying in a statement that attacks on humanitarian deliveries undermine efforts to reach people facing hunger and displacement. She also said a drone strike last week hit close to a WFP facility in the Blue Nile province and wounded a WFP worker.
Rights groups and outside officials also reacted to the attacks on humanitarian operations. Emergency Lawyers, an independent group documenting atrocities in Sudan, blamed the RSF for the strike on the WFP convoy, and the Sudan Doctors Network called the attack a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and amounts to a full-fledged war crime.” Massad Boulos, a U.S. adviser for African and Arab affairs, condemned the attack on X and said the U.S. administration demanded accountability, citing “U.S.-funded assistance.”
Boulos said, “Destroying food intended for people in need and killing humanitarian workers is sickening,” and added that the “Trump Administration has zero tolerance for this destruction of life and of U.S.-funded assistance; we demand accountability.” British minister Jenny Chapman, who covers international development and Africa, called the attack on the WFP convoy “disgraceful” and wrote on X that “Aid workers and humanitarian operations bringing vital food should never be targeted.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry also condemned recent RSF drone strikes, including attacks that it said hit the vehicle of displaced families, the WFP convoy and a hospital in Kordofan that killed 22 people. The Saudi statement said the RSF should stop attacking civilians and aid convoys, and it criticized foreign parties it said continue to “deliver illegal arms, mercenaries and foreign fighters,” while the statement acknowledged the United Arab Emirates has denied accusations by rights groups and U.N. experts that it has armed the RSF.
Beyond the attacks, aid agencies and monitors have warned that hunger conditions are worsening in areas where Kordofan has become a flashpoint in the war. In recent months, Kordofan has seen heavy fighting, and the army managed to break an RSF siege of two major cities in the region earlier this year, according to the report. The fighting has killed more than 40,000 people, according to U.N. figures, though aid groups say the true death toll could be much higher.
A report released Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said famine was found in two more areas in western Darfur where famine was confirmed for the first time in a displacement camp in August 2024. The report warned that acute malnutrition is expected to worsen in 2026, including a 13.5% increase in cases of acute malnutrition in children under five and pregnant and breastfeeding women—from 3.7 million in 2025 to nearly 4.2 million in 2026. It also said severe acute malnutrition, described as the most dangerous and deadly form of malnutrition, is expected to rise to 800,000 cases, up 4% from 2025.
Save the Children’s country director for Sudan, Mohamad Abdiladif, said children were already dying from hunger-related causes in many parts of Sudan. In remarks included in the report, he said, “Every day we hear devastating stories of parents selling the last of what they own simply to keep their children alive from one day to the next.”