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 organisations blaming paramilitaries.

The convoy was headed on Friday (February 6, 2026) 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 organisation 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.

A paramilitary drone attack on the army-held town of Kalogi in Sudan’s South Kordofan state hit a kindergarten and a hospital, killing dozens of civilians, a local official told AFP on Sunday (December 7, 2025).

The attack, which took place on Thursday (December 4), involved three strikes, “first a kindergarten, then a hospital and a third time as people tried to rescue the children”, Essam al-Din al-Sayed, head of the Kalogi administrative unit, told AFP using a Starlink connection.

He blamed the assault on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu.

Since April 2023, the Army and the paramilitary RSF have been locked in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million.

Independent verification of reports from the Kordofan region remains difficult due to spotty communications, restricted access and ongoing insecurity.

The UN children’s agency said the attack killed more than 10 children aged between five and seven, while the Army-aligned Foreign Ministry put the overall death toll at 79, including 43 children.

“Killing children in their school is a horrific violation of children’s rights,” said UNICEF Representative for Sudan Sheldon Yett, urging all sides to halt their attacks and allow humanitarian access.

Following their late-October capture of El-Fasher — the Army’s last stronghold in western Sudan — the RSF has pushed eastward into the oil-rich Kordofan region, which is divided into three states.

More than 40,000 people have fled the region in the past month, according to the UN.

Analysts say the paramilitary offensive aims to break the army’s final defensive arc around central Sudan and set the stage for attempts to retake major cities, including the capital Khartoum.

A wave of drone strikes hit key infrastructure and military targets near Sudan’s army-held capital on Tuesday (September 9, 2025), witnesses and officials told AFP, bringing to an abrupt end a period of relative calm in the area.

Strikes hit a power station, a weapons factory and an oil refinery near Khartoum, witnesses at the sites said on condition of anonymity, while a military source said an air base had also been targeted.

The assault came months after the military ousted the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces from the area in May, a key battleground in the war that erupted in April 2023.

It came as the army-backed government pressed a major reconstruction bid in the Khartoum area, after millions of people fled fighting in the city earlier in the conflict.

The attacks occurred at around 5:00 am (0300 GMT), with witnesses telling AFP by phone, on condition of anonymity, that they had seen strikes hit the Al-Jaili oil refinery, the Al-Markhiyat substation in Omdurman and the Yarmuk weapons factory.

Four drones targeted the power station and sparked a fire, the witnesses said, with images posted on social media appearing to show the site in flames.

A source at the national electricity company told AFP that the damage had been minor. The military source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strike on Wadi Seidna air base had been intercepted.

“Our air defence intercepted and shot down the drones that were targeting the base,” the source told AFP. Another drone strike hit an army building in Kafuri, wounding several troops, another military source said.

The RSF has in recent months been accused of widespread drone attacks in several army-controlled areas of Sudan, striking critical infrastructure and causing blackouts for millions.

No peace in sight

Efforts to mediate between Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy turned rival, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, have failed to yield a sustained ceasefire, with the military vowing to fight until victory.

The army-backed provisional government has launched a vast reconstruction programme in Khartoum, with around 600,000 people displaced earlier in the conflict heading back to their homes, according to the UN.

The war devastated the capital and forced around half of its nine million residents to flee.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and forced around 14 million others to flee their homes, seeking refuge in other parts of the country or beyond its borders.

While Khartoum and the coastal city of Port Sudan have seen a return of relative calm in recent months, the El-Fasher area of Darfur, under paramilitary siege since May 2024, has been subjected to the fiercest attacks since the start of the war.

Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in the area in recent months.