Five people were killed and several others wounded in an attack Monday on a convoy carrying essential supplies in the besieged city of El Fasher in the western Sudan, according to the UN.

Several of the 15 trucks carrying food to starving families in the city were set on fire near Koma, North Darfur, the World Food Program (PAM) and Unicef said in a joint statement. The convoy, with trucks from these two UN agencies, was waiting for approval to proceed to El Fasher, having already covered a distance of 1,800 kilometers from Port Sudan.

As the procedures stipulate, it had given advance notice of the route he would take and the warring sides had been informed of the trucks’ whereabouts.

The two UN agencies “demand an immediate end to attacks on humanitarian workers, their facilities and vehicles”, which amounts to a violation of international humanitarian law, they stressed.

Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country, has been mired since April 2023 in a war for power between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader since the 2021 coup, and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the head of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces.

The two warring sides blame each other for the attack on Koma. The IDF says “the convoy was deliberately targeted by the army” while the government accuses the paramilitaries of attacking the trucks with drones.

The Komma attack is part of “a series of attacks against humanitarian operations” in Sudan, PAM and Unicef assess for their part, denouncing “impunity” for the perpetrators. Last Thursday, PAM’s offices in El Fasher (the city has been under siege by the paramilitaries since May 2024) were “destroyed by repeated bombardments” by the IDF.

Koma is about 80 kilometres from El Fasher, located in a strategic zone of Darfur, where fierce clashes have been taking place in recent weeks.

After losing the capital Khartoum in March, the ISF have focused their attacks in western Sudan, aiming to take El Fasher, the last provincial capital they do not yet control. The UN says three IDP camps around the city are already in famine and five other zones, including El Fasher itself, may also be declared in famine soon.

The war in Sudan, now entering its third year, has led to the deaths of thousands of people. Some 13 million are displaced and much of the country is starving. According to the UN, the conflict has caused “the largest humanitarian crisis” in the world.

About 4 million people have fled Sudan in recent years, according to Eugene Bune, the UNHCR spokeswoman. Of those, 1.5 million headed to Egypt, more than 1.1 million to South Sudan (800,000 were South Sudanese refugees in Sudan) and at least 850,000 to Chad. About a month ago 68,556 refugees arrived in the provinces of Wadi Fira and East Enedi in Chad. Nearly 1,400 people have been crossing the border daily in recent days.