People stand near trucks loaded with aid in Port Sudan during the launch of humanitarian aid convoy
At least three aid workers have been killed and four others wounded in a drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on an aid convoy in Sudan’s South Kordofan state, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, in the latest carnage against civilians caught up in the nation’s brutal civil war.
The convoy of trucks carrying food and humanitarian supplies was targeted by the RSF, and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North, while travelling through the Kartala area on its way to the cities of Kadugli and Dilling on Thursday.
“The network strongly condemned the deliberate targeting of humanitarian convoys, describing it as a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and of all norms prohibiting attacks on humanitarian workers,” wrote the Sudan Doctors Network in a social media post.
The network said that this attack marked the “second such incident in less than a month, following the shelling of a United Nations aid convoy in the town of Al-Rahad,” adding: “this dangerous escalation threatens the safety of humanitarian operations and further exacerbates civilian suffering”.
The Sudan Doctors Network reiterated its call to the “international community, the United Nations, and human rights organisations to exert urgent and effective pressure on the leadership of the Rapid Support Forces to ensure the protection of aid convoys and their workers, to open safe and sustainable humanitarian corridors, and to hold those responsible for targeting aid accountable”.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the latest RSF attack, which came a month after the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) announced that it had broken a nearly two-year-long RSF siege on Dilling.
Dilling lies halfway between Kadugli – the besieged state capital – and el-Obeid, the capital of neighbouring North Kordofan province, which the RSF has sought to encircle.
The RSF and the SAF have been waging a brutal civil war for control of Sudan since April 2023, which has killed thousands of people and displaced millions.
After being forced out of the capital, Khartoum, in March, the RSF has focused on the Kordofan region and el-Fasher city in North Darfur state, which was the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region until the RSF seized it in October.
Reports of the paramilitary carrying out mass killings, rape, abductions and looting emerged after el-Fasher’s takeover, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched a formal investigation into “war crimes” by both sides.
On Wednesday, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan determined that the RSF carried out “a coordinated campaign of destruction” against non-Arab communities in and around el-Fasher during its 18-month siege of the city, the hallmarks of which amount to genocide.
The fact-finding mission, which was mandated by members of the UN Human Rights Council, said that the RSF had committed at least three out of the five criteria of what constitutes a genocide.
According to the report, they included killing members of protected ethnic groups (in this case, the Zaghawa and Fur communities), causing serious bodily and mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.
Following the report’s release, the United States announced sanctions on RSF Brigadier-General Elfateh Abdullah Idris Adam, Major-General Gedo Hamdan Ahmed Mohamed and field commander Tijani Ibrahim Moussa Mohamed for their roles in the “horrific campaign” of the siege and capture of el-Fasher.
