2.4.2. Situation of aid workers

In 2024, the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers according to the Aid Worker Security Report 2025, 60 humanitarian workers were killed in Sudan.381 The 2025 aid worker security report compiled by the Aid Workers Security Database (AWSD), a group tracking major incidents globally impacting aid workers, noted a shift in risk and casualty burden from international to local aid organisations particularly in areas where government authorities restricted humanitarian access or where active hostilities prevented international presence.382

At least 85 Sudanese humanitarian workers were killed between April 2023 and April 2025,383 while the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) recorded 139 national aid workers deaths between 2023 and April 2026, alongside 75 wounded, 64 kidnapped and 19 detained.384 Between January and June 2025, as reported by UN OHCHR, at least thirty humanitarian and health workers were killed and 8 injured in North Darfur, Khartoum, Al Jazirah, and West and South Kordofan.385

According to a Sudanese NGO, the lack of governance and security in RSF-controlled areas, has resulted in incidents of arbitrary violence by armed individuals. This has increased the risks faced by humanitarian workers when travelling to unfamiliar areas ‘where controlling forces often presume hostile intent’.386

ERR volunteers working in community-led public kitchens (known as takaaya387), a critical source of assistance on the ground, have reportedly been ‘abducted, robbed, arrested, beaten, and killed.’ Activists noted that their visibility within local communities increased their exposure to risk, while ‘it remained unclear whether community kitchen volunteers were targeted because of their humanitarian work or because of their perceived affiliation with one of the factions in the war’.388 In April 2025, the community kitchen facility in Zamzam IDP camp was burnt down, killing at least two female volunteers.389 For additional information see section 2.1.2. Resistance committees.

Emergency lawyers reported an escalation of targeted attacks on aid convoys and humanitarian operations since the outbreak of war in April 2023, with more than 15 documented attacks on humanitarian convoys as of February 2026.390 In early June 2025, a UN humanitarian convoy waiting for security clearance overnight to continue to El Fasher in Al Koma locality, North Darfur, was reportedly hit by multiple drones. The incidents resulted in the deaths of at least five members of the convoy and injuries to several others.391 In February 2026, a drone attack hit a World Food Programme (WFP) aid convoy in North Kordofan killing one person and wounding several others, while another strike near a WFP facility in the Blue Nile wounded a WFP employee.392

Humanitarian personal and ERR members are also exposed to the risk of being kidnapped for ransom.393 An increase in aid workers kidnappings has been reported in contested or transitional areas, reflecting a pattern of abduction by non-state armed groups for leverage or extortion.394 Available data indicated that 27 aid workers were kidnapped in 2025,395 with ransom demands typically ranging from 2 000 to 5 000 USD [approximately between EUR 1 670 and 4 180] and often increasing once families made initial payments.396 Documented cases included the enforced disappearance of a Red Crescent team of seven aid workers near Kadugli, South Kordofan, in June 2025.397 In April 2025, authorities in Dilling arrested a member of the Dilling ERR for interrogation and, in May 2025, four members of the Central Kadugli ERR were arrested by the SAF-aligned MIS.398