UN aid convoy hit in Sudan’s Darfur, multiple casualties reported

Trucks were 'waiting for approval to proceed to El Fasher'

- PORT SUDAN

A United Nations convoy delivering aid to the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan’s famine-stricken western Darfur region was attacked, Unicef said yesterday.

Initial reports indicated multiple casualties, a UN spokesperson told AFP, as the world body’s refugee agency announced four million people had fled Sudan's brutal war.

Since April 2023, Africa’s third-largest country has been engulfed by a war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The attack, which took place in North Darfur where over a million people are on the brink of mass starvation, is the latest assault on aid in a country gripped by what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The convoy, including trucks from the UN children’s agency and World Food Programme, was in Al Koma, North Darfur, “waiting for approval to proceed to El Fasher” when it came under attack on Monday, Unicef spokesperson Eva Hinds told AFP.

She did not specify who was behind the attack.