A WFP food convoy is hit between Dilling and Kadugli, and the driver is killed

An aerial attack early on Saturday killed the driver of a World Food Programme convoy in South Kordofan and hit two contracted trucks carrying food from Dilling to Kadugli. The WFP said the trucks were clearly marked as humanitarian vehicles. It did not name the party that fired. It asked for a prompt and impartial investigation, and for those responsible to be held to account.

The agency's statement, issued from Khartoum on Sunday, is precise about the route and vague about the damage. The trucks were en route between two cities held by the Sudanese Armed Forces. Additional details, including how much of the food cargo was destroyed, were still being collected. One driver was killed. The WFP sent condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. It did not publish his name.

The strike was the second hit on a WFP vehicle in the same state in two days. On Friday a WFP truck struck an explosive device in Dilling after it had delivered food. A mine or a roadside bomb and an air strike are different weapons. Together they close the road from both the ground and the air. Dilling to Kadugli is a short haul inside government-held territory. If that road is not safe for a marked food truck, the agency's map of South Kordofan has no quiet corridor left.

Kordofan became a main front in late 2025, after the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces had already run for more than two years. The SAF holds Dilling and Kadugli. The RSF and allied forces have pressed the approaches. An air strike on a road between two SAF cities points, on the geography alone, at a party that can fly over government ground. The WFP did not make that inference. Al Jazeera noted the same limit: the agency identified the route and the markings, and stopped there.

Markings are the legal point the statement is written to protect. International humanitarian law requires parties to distinguish civilian objects from military ones, and to allow relief consignments through. A truck painted and flagged as a UN food vehicle is the clearest civilian object on a battlefield road. Hitting two of them does not become lawful because the cargo tally is unfinished. The WFP's call for an investigation is the procedural reply. The operational reply is whether the next convoy leaves Dilling.

The agency said it remains committed to delivering aid to millions of people across Sudan. That sentence is the standard close. The new fact is the pair of incidents: an explosive device on Friday, an air strike on Saturday, both in South Kordofan, both on contracted trucks. Contractors, not UN staff, were driving. That does not change the marking or the death. It does change the labour market. Drivers who take WFP contracts in Kordofan now have a two-day sample of what the road costs.

No figure for lost tonnage was in the Sunday statement. In a state where Kadugli has been cut off before, tonnage is the number that decides whether a kitchen opens. The WFP said it was still collecting that detail. Until it publishes it, the known loss is one driver and two trucks on a road the agency had judged passable enough to use.

The investigation it wants needs access to the strike site, fragments, and a flight log. None of the parties fighting in Kordofan has a record of providing those quickly. The useful test this week is smaller. If a marked convoy moves from Dilling to Kadugli again, the agency has decided the road is still a road. If it does not, Saturday closed it.