The United Nations warned this week that drone strikes in Sudan are systematically destroying the power, fuel and water systems that keep civilians alive — and that the attacks, which killed at least 306 people in the first three weeks of October alone, now account for most civilian deaths in the country's civil war.
Denise Brown, the UN's resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, told UN News on 3 November that there had been "an intense pattern of drone strikes over the past couple of weeks" and that energy and fuel sources "appear to be systematically targeted and destroyed". Two days later, the UN's peacekeeping chief told the Security Council that drone strikes in the disputed Abyei region marked a "new and concerning" threat to a war that is already the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
What the UN said this week
Brown's message was blunt. "This is not about politics. This is about people," she said. At a hospital just outside Khartoum, World Health Organization staff watched the electricity go out during a drone strike; the hospital had no generator and no solar panels, and 25 people who needed dialysis had their treatment stopped "point blank".
"There is no defence for repeatedly hitting power stations and fuel stations. People who need lifesaving dialysis can't get it. Women are giving birth with no lights in the hospital. Operations can't take place."
— Denise Brown, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, speaking to UN News, 3 November 2026
Brown said markets and displacement sites had also been hit, and hundreds of aid trucks were stranded for lack of fuel. The World Food Programme, which moves thousands of trucks carrying food across Sudan, has had seven of its convoys hit this year and 20 over the past two years.
On 5 November, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN's peacekeeping chief, briefed the Security Council on the 19 October drone strikes in Abyei, the disputed oil-rich region on the Sudan–South Sudan border. The strikes killed at least 30 people and injured about 59, he said, and were the first of their kind in Abyei. The Secretary-General's special envoy for the Horn of Africa called them one of the deadliest incidents in Abyei's history and urged a prompt and independent investigation.
The October toll: at least 306 dead in three weeks
The UN Human Rights Office documented at least 306 deaths and hundreds of injuries from drone strikes in the first three weeks of October, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on 23 October. The strikes were attributed to both the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and hit homes, markets, hospitals, displacement sites, power stations and water sources across Kordofan, Darfur, Blue Nile, Khartoum and other states. Drones, Türk said, already account for the majority of conflict-related civilian deaths in Sudan this year.
| Date (October) | Place | What the UN documented |
|---|---|---|
| 6–10 | Ghubeish and El Nuhud, West Kordofan | Alleged strikes on displaced people's shelters, attributed to government forces; at least 25 civilians killed, 31 injured |
| 9 | Abu Shendi, Blue Nile | Alleged RSF strike near a displacement site; at least 31 killed, mostly women and children |
| 18 | Dibab, West Kordofan | Transport truck hit; at least 139 killed |
| 19 | Amiet Market and Todach, Abyei | More than 80 killed, according to UN peacekeepers; 27 injured taken to a UN hospital |
The figures are minimum counts, not a final accounting. The UN has not published a full breakdown of the 306 deaths, and responsibility for individual attacks remains subject to verification.
Why the numbers differ. Casualty figures from individual strikes vary sharply between sources, and readers should treat each toll as reported, not settled. For the Sunday-evening strikes in West Kordofan on 18 October, Al Jazeera and AFP reported 80 people killed at a transport hub near a market in al-Dabba, citing residents and medical workers; the BBC, citing the Sudan War Observatory, reported 150 killed across the state's strikes that evening, including 145 people on a truck carrying mourners to a funeral. For the Amiet Market strike in Abyei the next day, Abyei's information minister put the toll at 153, while the UN peacekeeping force reported more than 80 killed and the UN peacekeeping chief told the Security Council at least 30 were killed. Communications blackouts in the region have hampered verification throughout this wave, and the accounts have not been reconciled.
Power and fuel under fire
The UN Human Rights Office reported at least 25 strikes targeting power and fuel infrastructure across 11 Sudanese states over the past two weeks, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said. The pattern continued into this week: according to local sources cited by UN News, drones struck an electricity transmission station and the Ar Rusayris Dam in Ed Damazine on Tuesday, causing widespread blackouts. The same day, airstrikes in Um Bader killed two women, injured 10 people and badly damaged two water stations.
The damage spreads through everything that depends on electricity and fuel. Hospitals lose power for dialysis and surgery. Water pumps stop. Aid trucks cannot move, and in Khartoum people queue for kilometres for fuel. Brown said the fuel shortage was becoming one of her biggest worries, because "if we don't have fuel, we can't move" — and food cannot reach people who need it. In October, a military source told Al Jazeera that air defences had intercepted several RSF drones targeting the Atbara and Setit dams in Gadarif state, about 420 kilometres east of Khartoum.
A war now fought by drones
Sudan's war began in April 2023, when army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, fell out over plans to fold the paramilitary into the army. The fighting, now in its fourth year, has killed at least 59,000 people, according to conflict monitor ACLED. About 13 million people have been forced from their homes, in what aid groups call the world's largest humanitarian crisis, and 33.7 million people urgently need food support this year, according to the UN.
Drones are a relatively new phase of the war. Both sides now strike far behind the front lines — at power stations, fuel depots, dams, markets and displacement camps — and neither has gained a decisive advantage from the new weapon. The RSF's self-declared administration and the monitoring group Emergency Lawyers accused the army of carrying out the al-Dabba attack; the army has not responded to the allegations about the West Kordofan strikes. A Sudanese military source told the BBC the army had carried out the Abyei market attack, saying the market was a fuel supply site for the RSF, while insisting the military does not deliberately target civilians.
The UN's top officials have been careful not to assign blame for every strike. Brown told UN News she did not know where the drones were being launched from. What the UN has said plainly is that the pattern — repeated strikes on the power and fuel systems civilians depend on — appears to violate international humanitarian law, which protects civilian infrastructure. Sudan has also filed complaints with the UN Security Council and the African Union over drone attacks it says were launched from Ethiopian territory. The United States urged the Security Council on 31 October to push for a humanitarian truce and expand an arms embargo on Sudan; China and Russia opposed widening the embargo.
What we know, and what we don't know yet
What we know
- Drone strikes killed at least 306 people in Sudan in the first three weeks of October, according to the UN Human Rights Office, and drones now cause most conflict-related civilian deaths in the country this year.
- Power and fuel facilities are being hit repeatedly — at least 25 strikes across 11 states in two weeks, according to the UN — shutting down hospital care, water supplies and aid deliveries.
- Drone strikes reached Abyei for the first time on 19 October, killing at least 30 people, the UN peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on 5 November.
- Sudan's humanitarian appeal, seeking nearly $2.9 billion, is less than half funded.
What we don't know yet
- The true death toll from the October wave. The UN's 306 is a documented minimum; individual strike tolls differ between sources and have not been reconciled.
- Who carried out each strike, and where the drones are launched from. The UN has said responsibility for individual strikes remains subject to verification.
- Whether the Security Council will act. The US has pushed for a humanitarian truce and a wider arms embargo; China and Russia opposed widening the embargo.
Key takeaways
- Drone strikes in Sudan killed at least 306 people in the first three weeks of October, the UN Human Rights Office documented — and drones now cause most civilian deaths in the war this year.
- The UN says power stations, fuel depots, dams and water stations are being hit systematically across 11 states, shutting down hospitals, water supplies and aid deliveries.
- Casualty figures for individual strikes are contested and unreconciled — from 80 to 150 for the same evening in West Kordofan — because of blackouts and no independent access.
- About 13 million people are displaced and 33.7 million need food aid, while the $2.9 billion humanitarian appeal is less than half funded.
- The Security Council is engaged — a briefing on Abyei on 5 November, a US push for a truce and a wider arms embargo — but China and Russia opposed widening the embargo.
The drone war in Sudan is still escalating, and the UN's warnings this week were not about a single strike but a pattern: the systems that keep people alive — power, fuel, water, hospitals — are becoming targets. What happens next depends on whether the Security Council can turn condemnation into pressure, whether the Khartoum talks on 8–10 November produce anything, and whether donors close the funding gap before the year ends. Until then, the UN's message is the one Brown put simplest: "This is not about politics. This is about people."
