Sudan's army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council has published a report saying 70 drone attacks launched from Ethiopian territory since February killed or wounded 484 civilians, and says it will take its case to the UN Security Council and the African Union.
Sudan's army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council on Sunday 1 November published a report accusing Ethiopia of allowing armed drones to take off from its territory to strike Sudanese cities and civilians, AFP reported. The council said Sudan would file complaints with the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council, while reserving its right to self-defence under international law.
What the report claims
According to AFP and The New Arab, the council documented 70 attacks between 15 February and 27 October, involving 187 one-way attack drones and 82 munitions dropped or fired from drones. It said the attacks killed or wounded 484 civilians, killed 176 soldiers and wounded 200 more. It named Asosa airport in western Ethiopia, the Kurmuk–Gizen border area and the Bahir Dar air base in Amhara region as launch sites, and said October alone accounted for 28 attacks and 97 drones.
Among the incidents listed were a 9 October strike on displaced families in Wad el-Mahi, Blue Nile state, which the report said killed 30 civilians (26 women and four children); a 19 October strike in Khartoum that it said killed three children; and attacks on 26 and 27 October that it said knocked six power stations out of service.
The new figures differ from those given at a defence ministry briefing on 29 October, when officials spoke of 162 drone attacks from Ethiopia that had killed more than 400 civilians and 102 military personnel, Radio Dabanga reported. The published summaries do not explain the difference, and none of the figures or flight data has been independently verified.
Denials and counter-accusations
Ethiopia denies the accusations and has in turn accused the Sudanese army of backing rebels linked to the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which Port Sudan rejects. Port Sudan also accuses the United Arab Emirates of supplying the Rapid Support Forces (RSF); the UAE denies arming the RSF. On Sunday the cabinet in Port Sudan described the strikes on service facilities as crimes against humanity, Sudan Tribune reported.
The drone war is not one-sided. The foreign minister of the Tasis-led Government of Peace and Unity, Amar Amoun Deldoum, told the UN Secretary-General's personal envoy, Pekka Haavisto, in Nairobi that army drones had struck markets in Nyala and Abyei, and said complaints had been lodged with the Security Council and the International Criminal Court, The Sudan Times reported, citing Erem News. Those submissions have not been independently confirmed. The UN says more than 1,100 people were killed in drone attacks across Sudan in the first half of 2026.
Photo: Asosa airport, western Ethiopia, 2015. Asrade, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.