More Than 160 Reported Killed in Sudan Drone Strikes Since Friday

A string of drone strikes across Sudan has killed more than 160 people since Friday, according to medics and rights groups. Both sides in the war are blamed. The deadliest single strike hit Al-Dibab, in West Kordofan state, on Sunday evening, Oct. 18.

The Al-Dibab strike

Residents and medical workers say a drone hit a transport hub where villagers had gathered to find rides home after market day. A witness, Ahmed Wadi, told reporters the drone struck twice, about 10 minutes apart. He said he helped bury 50 bodies, one of them his brother Mohamed.

A medical source speaking anonymously for safety put the toll at 80. Forty-seven wounded were taken to the nearby town of Al-Mujlad, and 30 of them later died.

The numbers vary. Local groups cited by Radio Dabanga, a Sudanese news service, put the toll above 100, with preliminary figures of 120 wounded. Three local bodies, the Supreme Council for Dar Hamar Affairs, the civil group Qimam and the Al-Dabab emergency room, put it at roughly 150 civilians killed. All of these counts come from relatives, medics and local organizations, so the final figure may change.

West Kordofan is entirely under control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF-declared administration, known as Tasis, and the monitoring group Emergency Lawyers blame the Sudanese army. Tasis said it suspects a Turkish-made Bayraktar Akinci drone. A Tasis spokesperson called the attack a war crime. The army has not publicly responded in the accounts available today.

Tasis also disputes how the attack began. It says the first blow hit a truck carrying people home from a condolence gathering, and that a second drone struck as people gathered to help the wounded. It counts 80 dead.

Strikes elsewhere

The weekend was not confined to Kordofan.

• Friday, Oct. 16: A drone strike hit a livestock market in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The army said it killed RSF fighters. The RSF said 30 civilians died.
• Friday: Emergency Lawyers said an RSF drone hit a gathering of displaced people in Blue Nile state, on the Ethiopian border, killing 41.
• Saturday, Oct. 17: A drone hit a lorry near Ankush in West Kordofan, killing four, according to the Kordofan Observatory.
• Sunday: A military source said air defenses intercepted several RSF drones aimed at the Atbara and Setit dams in Gedaref state. The RSF has not commented, and no casualties were reported.
• Monday, Oct. 19: Another drone attack hit Nyala, an RSF stronghold. Medical and RSF sources said 17 people were killed, seven of them RSF officers, and 23 wounded.
• Monday: Drones hit Khartoum. Emergency Lawyers said three children were killed. Military sources say the army shot down two drones it attributed to the RSF.

A war increasingly fought from the air

The army and the RSF have been fighting since April 2023, when a power struggle between Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, erupted in Khartoum. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more.

Drones are now the main killer of civilians. Between January and April, drone strikes accounted for at least 880 civilian deaths, more than 80% of all conflict-related civilian deaths in Sudan.

UN Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said Monday the organization is "alarmed by the continued deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians, including children, and that are disrupting central services."

Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, told the Security Council last week that the warring parties "are not moving closer to dialogue." In her words, "they seem to believe that they can make greater gains on the battlefield and that continued external support will allow them to pursue their objectives by force."

Washington's stalled truce push

The Trump administration has been pushing a 90-day humanitarian truce. It withheld Burhan's visa to attend the UN General Assembly in September amid a dispute over the proposal.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sept. 22 that neither the army, the RSF, nor their leaders "represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan." He said both sides had intensified combat and drone strikes that killed civilians, and that Washington had asked them to accept a truce "without preconditions."

Burhan's camp rejects that account. His foreign affairs adviser, Amjad Farid Al-Tayyib, told Fox News Digital that Sudan never rejected the American proposal and instead submitted technical comments. He said Sudanese voters, not foreign governments, should decide who leads the country after the war. Burhan himself said on a Saturday in September: "We do not need a visa to any country or anyone's permission."

What comes next

The UN arms embargo covers only Darfur, and calls are growing to widen it, as the strikes in Kordofan, Blue Nile and Khartoum show. Congress is also weighing a bill that would tie a minerals and trade partnership with Sudan to civilian protection.

Neither measure has passed. Neither side has accepted a truce, and the drones that hit Al-Dibab, Nyala and Khartoum this weekend are still flying.