The attacks come as nearly 19.5 million Sudanese face severe hunger amid the country’s deepening humanitarian crisis.

A force affiliated with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed at least 27 people, including elderly residents, in an attack on villages west of Bara in Sudan’s North Kordofan state, according to the Sudan Doctors Network.

The Cairo-based medical NGO said the attacks took place on Thursday in the al-Murrah area, describing them as “a new crime targeting unarmed civilians in areas with no military presence”.

Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, when long-running tensions between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted into a full-scale conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

The Kordofan region has become one of the war’s main battlegrounds, with fighting intensifying across several fronts, including through drone attacks.

The RSF and allied groups control much of the western Darfur region, as well as parts of Kordofan along the border with South Sudan, areas rich in oil fields and gold mines. The paramilitary force has also repeatedly clashed with the army over the town of Bara.

Thursday’s assault took place during the second day of Eid al-Adha.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the Sudan Doctors Network said that “targeting villages and civilian areas and executing citizens in such a brutal manner constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and all norms and conventions that prohibit attacks on civilians, especially amid the catastrophic humanitarian conditions people are enduring because of the ongoing war”.

The group added that the “continued attacks on civilians and safe villages” are worsening the humanitarian crisis and forcing more families into displacement, suffering and the loss of their livelihoods.

The attacks come as more than 40 percent of Sudan’s population faces acute hunger, according to a report released on Thursday by the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

The report said nearly 19.5 million people across the country are facing severe food insecurity as the conflict drives what aid agencies describe as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The Sudan Doctors Network also called on the “international community and human rights and humanitarian organizations to condemn these violations and act urgently to protect civilians and stop the repeated attacks on residential areas by pressuring RSF leaders to end violations against civilians”.