KHARTOUM: A drone attack hit an aid truck in Sudan's North Darfur state, destroying all the supplies on board, the UN refugee agency said on Sunday, without identifying who was responsible.
Drone strikes by both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been locked in a brutal war since April 2023, have escalated in recent months, often killing dozens at a time.
The UNHCR-operated vehicle "came under drone attack" on Friday while transporting emergency shelter kits to Tawila, home to more than 700,000 displaced people who fled fighting elsewhere in the western Darfur region, the agency said.
The driver escaped unhurt, but all supplies were destroyed in the resulting fire, it added.
UNHCR condemned the attack, warning that it would "leave 1,314 families living in desperate conditions in Tawila without shelter" at a time when humanitarian needs are already overwhelming.
More than 127,000 people fled El-Fasher, North Darfur's capital and the army's last stronghold in the region, after it fell to paramilitary forces in October, with reports of mass killings, sexual violence, looting, and rape following the takeover.
Fighting has since spread to neighbouring Kordofan, now the main theatre of the war, and the southeastern Blue Nile state, raising fears of a longer and increasingly fragmented conflict.
According to the UN, nearly 700 civilians have been killed in drone strikes by both sides since January alone.
UNHCR voiced "deep concern" over the rising use of drones, calling repeated attacks on humanitarian operations "particularly abhorrent".
According to an assessment by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, 28.9 million people, around 62 percent of Sudan's population, are facing acute food insecurity.
That includes 10.2 million who face severe food insecurity, in particular in the wider Darfur region and South Kordofan state.
Famine was declared last year in El-Fasher and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, with 20 other areas at risk in Darfur and Kordofan, a UN-backed assessment found.
The conflict has already killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 11 million, and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.
