FIGHTING in Sudan’s Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur is worsening Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, the United Nations has warned.

The UN said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed over the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara, North Kordofan province.

Mercy Corps country director for Sudan Kadry Furany said: “The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day. 

“Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan was plunged into war after fighting broke out between former government allies the Sudanese Army and paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023. 

The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organisations. Much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions in recent months.

The UN human rights office confirmed on Thursday that, since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed.

A military air strike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured more than two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is based in Port Sudan, said fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

She said: “A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced. 

“It is a complete war zone there.”