Air strike on UN food aid trucks kills driver in Sudan's South Kordofan

An air strike on United Nations trucks has killed a driver in Sudan’s South Kordofan, according to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).

The WFP said in a statement released on Sunday that the trucks, carrying food aid, were “clearly marked as humanitarian vehicles” as they came under attack. The agency did not identify those responsible.

The strike hit the convoy on Saturday as it was travelling between two cities controlled by the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in South Kordofan state.

Fighting in the Kordofan region intensified in late 2025, turning the territory into a strategic battleground between the SAF and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two have been fighting for control of Sudan in a civil war that has now lasted more than three years.

The extent of the damage and additional details regarding the attack on WFP aid trucks are still being assessed. The UN agency said that it has called for an investigation.

“These incidents underscore the increasingly challenging security environment in Sudan and the risks that aid workers face when delivering life-saving assistance to communities in need,” the statement reads.

Since the war began in April 2023, one in five attacks in Sudan has occurred in the Kordofan region. The army has the upper hand in the north, having made a series of recent gains, while the RSF maintains control over much of the west. South Kordofan remains contested.

Both the SAF and RSF have increasingly deployed drones in their war, with attacks on towns in North Kordofan growing more frequent and deadly, and civilian infrastructure coming under attack across the region.

The civil war has forcibly displaced 14 million people, plunging the country into one of the worst modern food crises and killing tens of thousands of people.

Nearly 19.5 million people – about 41 percent of Sudan’s population – were struggling with acute food crises between February and May, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification assessment, a leading authority on global hunger. More than five million faced extreme, life-threatening food shortages, and 135,000 were at risk of famine.