A DRONE attack on a United Nations convoy set fire to all 16 lorries carrying desperately needed food aid to Sudan’s famine-hit North Darfur region, destroying all the vehicles.

UN associate spokesperson Daniela Gross told reporters on Thursday that all drivers and personnel travelling with the World Food Programme convoy were safe.

She said it was not yet clear who had carried out Wednesday’s attack, the second in the past three months to prevent a UN convoy from delivering aid to North Darfur. 

In early June, a convoy from the World Food Programme and Unicef was attacked while awaiting clearance to proceed to North Darfur’s besieged capital el-Fasher, killing five people and injuring several more.

Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when violence sparked by long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders erupted in the capital Khartoum, and spread to other regions, including western Darfur. 

Some 40,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million displaced, UN agencies say. Nearly 25 million people are experiencing acute hunger, Ms Gross said.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and their allies announced in late June that they had formed a parallel government in areas they control, mainly in the vast Darfur region, where allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity are being investigated.

The RSF has encircled el-Fasher, where the UN says people are facing starvation. It is the only capital that the paramilitary forces don’t hold in Darfur, which comprises five states.

Over a year ago, famine was declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. The risk of famine has since spread to 17 areas in Darfur and the Kordofan region, which is adjacent to North Darfur and west of Khartoum, the UN says.