Security Council decries atrocities in war-ravaged Sudan, including mass killings, sexual violence and attacks on aid workers.. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has expressed “deep concern” over escalating violence across war-torn Sudan, including in Darfur and Kordofan states, calling for an immediate end to the fighting.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the UNSC denounced repeated drone attacks against non-combatants, civilian facilities, and humanitarian workers, including “multiple attacks impacting” the World Food Programme (WFP).
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been pitted against the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in a brutal civil war now into its third year, have been blamed for the spike in drone attacks on civilians.
Thousands of people have been killed, and millions have been displaced in a conflict that has created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
Earlier this week, the RSF carried out a major raid in Misteriha in North Darfur State, killing at least 28 people and injuring 39, including 10 women, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which monitors violence in the three-year war.
Intensified drone attacks on the new front line of Sudan’s civil war have led to mass civilian casualties in recent weeks and are increasingly shaping the course of the conflict.
The epicenter of the fighting has shifted to the south-central Kordofan region since both sides consolidated their gains in the other main battlefields of this nearly three-year war.
The conflict between the Sudanese regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has become one of the deadliest in Africa for civilians and shows no sign of abating despite US-led peace efforts.
The near-daily drone strikes have hit targets including markets, health facilities, aid convoys and residential areas across the Kordofan region, prompting outrage from the UN and humanitarian officials.
“The continued attacks by all parties on civilian objects must stop,” the UN human rights chief Volker Türk said last week.
“The parties must take urgent measures to protect civilians, including by refraining from the military use of civilian objects.”
He was speaking after reports that more than 50 civilians had been killed over two days in separate drone strikes in North and West Kordofan.
The council also condemned what it called the “continued assault and destabilisation in the Kordofan region”.
“They strongly condemned all forms of violations and abuses committed against the civilian population,” the statement added.
“Council members condemned reports of arbitrary detention and conflict-related sexual violence and stressed that such acts may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The RSF, together with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, has laid siege to Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, since the conflict began in April 2023. Earlier this month, SAF asserted that it had succeeded in breaking through the siege of the city.
In November, the UN formally declared a famine in Kadugli, pointing to “months without reliable access to food or medical care”.
The statement also pointed to the reported atrocities committed by the RSF in El-Fasher in North Darfur state, which include “systematic killing”, “mass displacement” and “summary executions”. The UN has previously described El-Fasher as a “crime scene.”
After the paramilitary group was pushed out of the capital, Khartoum, in March, the RSF shifted its campaign to the Kordofan region and to the city of el-Fasher in North Darfur, which had been the army’s last bastion in the vast Darfur region until it fell to the RSF in October.
Following the capture of El-Fasher, accounts surfaced accusing the group of mass killings, rape, abductions and widespread looting, prompting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open a formal probe into alleged “war crimes” by both parties to the conflict.
On Tuesday, the UNSC imposed sanctions on four high-ranking RSF figures, including the brother of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the current head of RSF. The sanctions include travel restrictions and asset freezes.
The UNSC also expressed alarm over repeated drone attacks against civilians, civilian infrastructure and humanitarian workers, including strikes on WFP operations since early February 2026.
“Council members reiterated that deliberate attacks against humanitarian personnel, their premises and assets may constitute war crimes,” it said.
“They called on all parties to the conflict to respect and protect humanitarian personnel, as well as their premises and assets in accordance with their obligations under international law.”
It called for safe, unhindered humanitarian access and the free movement of civilians. “They (UNSC) stressed that starvation must not be used as a weapon of war,” it added.
According to the latest figures from the WFP, at least 21.2 million people, or 41 percent of the population, are facing high levels of acute food shortages, while 12 million people have been “forced from their homes by the conflict”.
Sudanese paramilitary forces kill at least 28 people in an attack in Darfur, medical group says
