Continued drone attacks are worsening an already severe humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Kordofan region, where cholera is spreading and water supplies are critically low, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday.
A drone strike targeted a civilian vehicle near Al-Shaatut village east of Jabrat Al-Sheikh in North Kordofan on July 6, causing casualties and damage, OCHA said, citing local sources. The following day, another drone struck a water truck in Hamrat Al-Sheikh, causing additional civilian casualties and disrupting access to water, the agency added.
Cholera continues to spread across Kordofan, with humanitarian partners reporting a suspected case in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, OCHA said. Continued drone attacks have reduced the city’s water supply to 20% of its needs, it added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has pre-positioned cholera response supplies in El Obeid and established a treatment centre there, OCHA said. It has allocated more than $4 million from the Sudan Humanitarian Fund to support food security, nutrition, healthcare, water and sanitation, protection services and mine action, it added.
In neighbouring South Kordofan, the UN children’s agency UNICEF delivered health supplies to Abu Jubaiha to support emergency and routine services for about 240,000 people, OCHA said.
El Obeid, a city of about 500,000 residents before the conflict, has become a major displacement hub, with unofficial estimates putting its current population at around 3 million, OCHA said.
For more than a month, the city has come under drone attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), targeting the main power station, fuel facilities and other civilian sites, killing and wounding dozens of people, according to OCHA.
Sudan has been engulfed in war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the army and the RSF over plans to integrate the force into the military. The conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions, according to UN estimates.
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