KHARTOUM: A drone attack hit an aid truck in Sudan&#39;s North Darfur state, destroying all the supplies on board, the UN refugee agency said on Sunday, without identifying who was responsible.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;The UNHCR-operated vehicle &quot;came under drone attack&quot; 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.&nbsp;The driver escaped unhurt, but all supplies were destroyed in the resulting fire, it added.&nbsp;UNHCR condemned the attack, warning that it would &quot;leave 1,314 families living in desperate conditions in Tawila without shelter&quot; at a time when humanitarian needs are already overwhelming.&nbsp;More than 127,000 people fled El-Fasher, North Darfur&#39;s capital and the army&#39;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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;According to the UN, nearly 700 civilians have been killed in drone strikes by both sides since January alone.&nbsp;UNHCR voiced &quot;deep concern&quot; over the rising use of drones, calling repeated attacks on humanitarian operations &quot;particularly abhorrent&quot;.&nbsp;According to an assessment by the UN&#39;s Food and Agriculture Organization, 28.9 million people, around 62 percent of Sudan&#39;s population, are facing acute food insecurity.&nbsp;That includes 10.2 million who face severe food insecurity, in particular in the wider Darfur region and South Kordofan state.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;The conflict has already killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 11 million, and created the world&#39;s largest displacement and hunger crises.

Africa

A drone attack destroyed a UN aid truck in North Darfur, burning all supplies. The driver escaped unharmed, and no group was identified.

Drone attack hits Sudan aid truck: UN

LONDON: The UK Friday imposed sanctions on senior commanders of Sudan&#39;s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) suspected of &quot;heinous violence&quot; in the Darfur hub of El-Fasher, which the paramilitary group captured in October.&nbsp;The Foreign Office in London said those targeted include RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo, whose brother Mohammad Hamdan Daglo is the group&#39;s leader, as well as three other commanders.&nbsp;They are accused of &quot;mass killings, systematic sexual violence and deliberate attacks on civilians&quot; when the RSF dislodged the Sudanese army from El-Fasher, its last stronghold in the western Darfur region.&nbsp;They now face UK asset freezes and travel bans.&nbsp;The government said the RSF&#39;s actions in El-Fasher were &quot;not random&quot; but instead &quot;part of a deliberate strategy to terrorise populations and seize control through fear and violence&quot;.&nbsp;It added satellite imagery showed evidence of mass graves where victims have been burned and buried, and the sanctions send &quot;a clear message that those who commit atrocities will be held to account&quot;.&nbsp;The European Union last month also slapped sanctions on Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo.&nbsp;In a statement unveiling the UK curbs, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the atrocities taking place in Sudan &quot;are so horrific they scar the conscience of the world&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;The overwhelming evidence of heinous crimes -- mass executions, starvation, and the systematic and calculated use of rape as a weapon of war -- cannot and will not go unpunished,&quot; she added.&nbsp;&quot;The UK will not look away, and we will always stand with the people of Sudan.&quot;&nbsp;Minni Minawi, the army-aligned governor of Darfur, welcomed the UK sanctions &quot;as an important step toward holding accountable those responsible for the crimes and violations witnessed in Sudan in recent times&quot;.&nbsp;But he added the measures &quot;remain incomplete&quot; unless they also target Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, &quot;as he is the decision-maker and the direct architect of the violence system&quot;.&nbsp;London also announced Friday &pound;21 million ($28 million) in additional aid to provide food, clean water, healthcare, and protection for women and children in areas of Sudan hardest hit by violence.&nbsp;It said the financial package took UK aid spending in Sudan this year to &pound;146 million.

United Kingdom

The UK imposed sanctions on senior RSF commanders for atrocities during the El-Fasher takeover, citing mass killings and sexual violence. London also announced £21 million in new aid for Sudan, while calls continue to sanction RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo.

UK slaps sanctions on Sudan RSF paramilitary deputy, other commanders

EL-FASHER: A drone strike by Sudan&#39;s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed eight people in a maternity ward in the besieged city of El-Fasher, a medical source told AFP on Wednesday. The RSF is currently waging its fiercest assault ever on El-Fasher in an attempt to wrest control of the city away from their rivals, the regular army. Since April 2023, the war between the two forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and pushed nearly 25 million people into acute hunger. Activists say El-Fasher, the last state capital in the vast western Darfur region to elude the paramilitary&#39;s grasp, has become &quot;an open-air morgue&quot; for starved civilians.&nbsp;Tuesday&#39;s deadly strike on El-Fasher Hospital also injured seven people and &quot;damaged buildings and equipment&quot;, the health worker said on condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety. The hospital is one of the last functioning health facilities in the city, with most repeatedly bombed and forced to shut. Nearly 80 percent of households in need of medical care in El-Fasher are unable to access it, according to the United Nations. Exhausted medical teams are already scrambling to treat the injured from the daily attacks on the city. Doctors, using satellite internet connections to circumvent a communications blackout, say they have taken to using bits of mosquito netting as a substitute for gauze. Nearly 18 months into the RSF&#39;s siege, the city -- home to 400,000 trapped civilians -- has run out of nearly everything. The animal feed families have survived on for months has grown scarce and now costs hundreds of dollars a sack.&nbsp;The majority of the city&#39;s soup kitchens have been forced shut for lack of food, according to local resistance committees, volunteer groups coordinating aid. One million have fled According to UN figures released Tuesday, more than 1 million people have fled El-Fasher since the war began, accounting for 10 per cent of all internally displaced people in the country. The population of the city, once the region&#39;s largest, has decreased by around 62 per cent, the UN&#39;s migration agency said.&nbsp;Civilians say the daily strikes force them to spend most of their time underground, in small makeshift bunkers families have dug in their back yards. Satellite imagery shows the RSF has built dozens of kilometres of walls around the city, leaving only a small exit where they are reportedly extorting civilians for safe passage.&nbsp;The UN has repeatedly warned of &quot;large-scale, ethnically driven attacks and atrocities&quot; in the city, where the RSF has overrun multiple famine-hit displacement camps, killing hundreds. &quot;After over 500 days of unremitting siege by the RSF and incessant fighting, El-Fasher is on the precipice of an even greater catastrophe if urgent measures are not taken (to) loosen the armed vice upon the city and to protect civilians,&quot; UN rights chief Volker Turk said Thursday.

A drone strike by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces on a maternity ward in El-Fasher killed eight, intensifying an 18-month siege marked by famine, displacement, and medical shortages.

Articles tagged with "Rapid Support Forces"

Drone attack hits Sudan aid truck: UN

UK slaps sanctions on Sudan RSF paramilitary deputy, other commanders

Paramilitary attack on maternity ward kills 8 in Sudan's El-Fasher