A DRONE attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan on Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

Saturday’s attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took place close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, according to the Sudan Doctors Network.

The vehicle was transporting displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area, the group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants.

Several others were wounded and taken for treatment in Rahad, which suffers severe medical supplies shortages, like many areas in the Kordofan region, the statement said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organisations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions displaced.

A drone attack on Friday on a World Food Programme (WFP) aid convoy in North Kordofan province killed one and wounded several others, said Denise Brown, the United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan.

Ms Brown said the convoy was heading to deliver “life-saving food assistance” to displaced people in the city of Obeid in North Kordofan when it was struck. The attack burned the trucks and destroyed the aid, she said.

“Attacks on aid operations undermine efforts to reach people facing hunger and displacement,” she said in a statement.

Emergency Lawyers, an independent group documenting atrocities in Sudan, blamed the RSF for the attack, while the Sudan Doctors Network called it a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and amounts to a full-fledged war crime.”

In a strongly worded statement on Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry blasted the RSF for its recent drone strikes, including on the vehicle of displaced families, the WFP convoy and on a hospital in Kordofan that killed 22 people.

The Saudis are believed to be working with the Egyptians to provide military support to the Sudanese military. The United Arab Emirates are accused of arming the RSF. Each nation, all regional allies of the United States, have denied the accusations.