Sudan Drone Strike Hits Aid Famine Convoy (North Darfur)
Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
A 16-truck United Nations (UN) aid convoy was attacked en route to North Darfur in war-torn Sudan, mirroring a previous assault on another UN convoy that was headed to famine-stricken El-Fasher several months ago.
El-Fasher, a city on the brink of famine, is under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), similar to the drone attacks targeting Port Sudan.
The BBC reports, “El-Fasher is the last major location in North Darfur under army control. Civilians and military personnel there have been under attack by the RSF for over a year.”
Daniela Gross, Associate Spokesperson for the United Nations, informed the media that all drivers and staff traveling with the World Food Programme (WFP) were safe, despite the extensive damage caused by the attack.
AP News reports, “Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when violence sparked by long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders erupted in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including western Darfur. Some 40,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million displaced, U.N. agencies say. Nearly 25 million people are experiencing acute hunger, Gross said.”
Famine was officially declared over a year ago in the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. Since then, the threat has expanded to 17 areas across Darfur and the neighboring Kordofan region, which borders North Darfur and lies west of Khartoum, according to the UN.
The WFP said, “Humanitarian staff and assets must never be a target.”
Amid the fog of war, both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF have denied responsibility for the attack. With both sides actively employing drone warfare, it remains unclear who was behind the latest strike on the aid convoy.
The aid convoy was reportedly heading to a village near Mellit, described by the WFP as a “famine-affected area” northwest of El-Fasher. El-Fasher, the army’s final stronghold in Darfur, is under RSF siege.
Human Rights Watch says: “Rapid Support Forces fighters and allied militias have raped scores of women and girls, including in the context of sexual slavery, in Sudan’s South Kordofan state since September 2023.”
The BBC reports, “Allegations of war crimes have persisted throughout the past two years, and in January 2025 the US determined that the RSF and allied militias had committed a genocide against the region’s non-Arab population.”
Slavery was officially abolished in the region of Mecca (modern-day Saudi Arabia) in the 1960s under international pressure. However, similar to the ISIS enslavement of Yazidis in Iraq, recent reports indicate that Arab Muslim groups in Sudan have continued to enslave African ethnic communities. This suggests that the practice of slavery has not been fully eradicated in some parts of the Arab Muslim world, often accompanied by deep-seated animosity toward Black African populations—as evidenced by ongoing persecution in Darfur and South Kordofan.
Catherine Russell (the Executive Director of UNICEF – actively involved in highlighting the crisis in Sudan) said, “Children as young as one being raped by armed men should shock anyone to their core and compel immediate action… Millions of children in Sudan are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which is being used as a tactic of war. This is an abhorrent violation of international law and could constitute a war crime. It must stop.”
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