UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown has warned that drone strikes are targeting power stations and fuel facilities in Sudan with no justification. A military source told Sudan Tribune that more than 180 drones had been tracked in two months. The 180 figure is a single-source claim.
UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown has again warned that drone strikes in Sudan are hitting power stations and fuel facilities, and that scarce fuel is badly affecting lifesaving aid work, UN News reported on 5 November. In remarks also carried by Sudan Tribune, Brown said the United Nations views the pattern as a direct threat to millions of civilians, stated there is no justification for repeatedly targeting energy and fuel sources, and called on member states to curb weapons flows and de-escalate.
A military source told Sudan Tribune that authorities had tracked more than 180 drones over the past two months and intercepted most of them, though some reached their targets. The same report said more than 19 power stations had been hit in seven days, including Al-Markhiyat in Omdurman, and that six markets had been bombed, notably in Nyala. CERHA attributes the 180-drone and station counts to that single unnamed military source; they have not been independently verified.
Mutual attrition
Sudan Tribune described a shift from street fighting toward drone attacks on generation stations, fuel depots and water facilities. It said the RSF has concentrated strikes on transformer and generation sites in the north, east and centre, naming Al-Dabba, Merowe, Atbara, Al-Faw and Al-Junaid among reported targets, while the army seeks to cut RSF supply lines. Retired brigadier Abdallah Ahmed Al-Nur told the paper both sides had turned to lower-cost drones after heavy ground losses; security expert Mohamed Sharaf El-Din said the aim was to cripple command and logistics by denying fuel and electricity.
UN News separately cited local reports of Tuesday strikes on an electricity transmission station and the Ar Rusayris Dam area in Ed Damazin, with blackouts and civilian deaths in a residential area. Earlier airstrike reports from Um Badr in North Kordofan are not re-examined here. UNICEF has delivered malaria treatment to 765 health facilities across Darfur and West Kordofan, enough for 800,000 people, UN News said, but Sudan's $2.9 billion humanitarian appeal remains less than half funded.
Image: The Merowe Dam on the Nile in northern Sudan, a major power facility. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.