A United Nations World Food Programme convoy delivering aid to displaced families near El Obeid in North Kordofan was struck by a drone on February 6, killing at least one person, injuring several others and damaging supplies, UN humanitarian coordination official Dennis Brown said. The convoy was en route to assist families displaced by renewed fighting as parts of central Sudan have become increasingly contested.
The UN statement noted a separate drone incident earlier in the week at a WFP facility in Blue Nile state that injured an employee, underscoring a mounting pattern of unmanned attacks on humanitarian operations across the country. Local medical group Sudan Doctors’ Network blamed the Rapid Support Forces for the El Obeid strike; the paramilitary group has not issued a public response.
The incident comes amid an escalation between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, with clashes widening into three states in the greater Kordofan region and transforming the area into a fresh focus of the conflict. Humanitarian convoys have long operated in perilous conditions in Sudan, but the increasing use of drones adds a new and unpredictable danger, making traditional risk-mitigation measures far less reliable.
Targeting or recklessly endangering humanitarian workers carries grave legal and operational consequences. If parties deliberately target aid convoys, those actions could constitute violations of international humanitarian law and further reduce already constrained access to food, medicine and shelter for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians.
For the World Food Programme and other agencies, drone threats complicate logistics and will likely force more aid to be rerouted, delayed or delivered through costlier air drops. That in turn risks accelerating malnutrition and deepening the humanitarian emergency as the lean season approaches and donor fatigue grows.
The strike also raises political stakes for international actors seeking to de‑escalate the Sudanese conflict. Protecting humanitarian space will require not only diplomatic pressure and improved monitoring but also practical steps to secure corridors, enforce airspace controls where feasible and hold perpetrators accountable. Failure to do so risks normalising attacks on aid operations and locking in a protracted humanitarian catastrophe in central Sudan.