Al Jazeera reports more than 160 deaths in recent days as the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces widen drone warfare into neighbourhoods and essential services.
Long-range drones are carrying Sudan’s war deeper into residential neighbourhoods and supply networks. In its October 22 report, Al Jazeera said a recent wave of drone attacks had killed more than 160 people across the country.
The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the national army, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in April 2023. Both sides have fought largely through ground offensives. Their growing use of drones—aircraft without an onboard pilot—allows attacks on areas far from those advances.
Military expert Abu Bakr Abdel Rahim told Al Jazeera that geography helps explain the army’s expanding drone campaign. Darfur is separated from the army’s concentrations in Kordofan by desert distances and long, exposed roads. Advancing on the ground would require extensive engineering work, air cover and logistical support, he said.
Abdel Rahim said the army’s main targets deep inside Darfur and Kordofan are RSF command centres, fuel and ammunition stores, and supply routes, especially those linked to the borders with Libya, Chad and South Sudan. He said the aim is to weaken the RSF’s ability to gather forces, launch counterattacks or recover lost strategic areas.
The range of equipment in use is also substantial. Al Jazeera cited an investigation by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) identifying 21 drone models used since the war began.
The joint statement estimates that 41% of Sudan’s population faces acute food insecurity, including five million at emergency levels, and calls for safe, unrestricted aid access.
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| Force | Reported types or models |
|---|
| Rapid Support Forces | 10 |
| Sudanese Armed Forces | 5 |
The forces give competing accounts of the attacks. Army spokesperson in Kordofan Mohamed Didan attributed recent RSF drone attacks on Khartoum to battlefield losses. He claimed army strikes in al-Dabbab, West Kordofan, had killed about 80 personnel mobilised for the RSF.
The RSF accused the army of carrying out massacres with drones at markets in Nyala and Abyei and a truck station in al-Dabbab. An anonymous Sudanese government official told Al Jazeera that the army does not target civilians and considers RSF military sites, logistical facilities and supply lines legitimate targets.
Al Jazeera reported that a recent RSF drone attack in Imtidad Nasser, east of the capital Khartoum, killed three children from one family. A resident described hearing drones before anti-aircraft fire and two large explosions shook the neighbourhood.
Didan also accused the RSF of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, citing Khartoum airport, fuel stations in Damazin and an electrical transformer station in Tendelti. He said the transformer-station attack caused blackouts in several cities.
The United Nations condemned the strikes. Its spokesperson said continuing drone attacks were killing civilians, including children, and disrupting essential services—extending the harm beyond the people directly hit.
The UK government has imposed travel bans and asset freezes on commanders from both sides of Sudan’s war whom it suspects of sexual violence during the siege of El Fasher.
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An official blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for strikes on five power stations, while residents described risks to refrigerated medicine, food stocks and efforts to resume farming.
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