NyalaSudan’s military drones struck residential areas for a 4th day.
The UN rights office said drones killed 880 civilians in Sudan between January and April, over 80% of all conflict deaths.
The Rapid Support Forces claimed to have shot down a Bayraktar Akinci drone over Dama; the claim is unverified.
Sources: Radio Dabanga
THE TWO ARMIES
Sudan's war is between two generals who once partnered to overthrow a civilian government. The SAF under Burhan and the RSF under Hemedti jointly crushed the 2019 democracy movement, then turned their shared military infrastructure against each other when a power-sharing deal collapsed in April 2023.
THE RSF'S ORIGINS
The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militias that carried out the Darfur genocide beginning in 2003. Bashir armed Arab militias to fight non-Arab rebels, then formalized them as the Rapid Support Forces in 2013. Hemedti, a former camel trader from Darfur, rose from militia commander to the second most powerful man in Sudan — with troops loyal to him personally, not the state.
WHY DRONES, WHY NOW
Sudan's army lost its air superiority advantage when the RSF captured most fixed bases in the west. Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci drones — bought through opaque channels after international pressure on Ankara — let the SAF strike RSF-held cities without basing aircraft in contested airspace. The RSF in turn flies smaller Iranian and Emirati-supplied drones, turning the war into a long-range exchange over civilian neighborhoods.
THE 80% NUMBER
When drones cause four-fifths of civilian deaths in a conflict, the war has crossed a threshold artillery and ground fire never reach. Drones can be flown from hundreds of kilometers away by operators with no visual on the target; the rules of distinction that international humanitarian law assumes — a soldier seeing what they shoot at — break down entirely.
THE FORGOTTEN WAR
By every measure of suffering, Sudan is the world's largest current humanitarian catastrophe — over 13 million displaced, famine declared in multiple regions, an economy contracting by double digits. Western coverage remains a fraction of what Gaza or Ukraine receive, in part because no major power has a direct interest in either side winning, and in part because the foreign sponsors — UAE backing the RSF, Egypt and Iran tilting toward the SAF — would be embarrassed by sustained attention.
THE PRECEDENT
Drone bombardment of cities held by an opposing force is no longer exotic — it is now the default of mid-tier wars. Ethiopia used Bayraktars to break the Tigrayan advance in 2021; Russia and Ukraine fire thousands of one-way drones at each other monthly; Yemen's Houthis strike Saudi and Emirati territory. Sudan is the latest battlefield in a global shift: precision air power, once monopolized by superpowers, now belongs to anyone with $5 million and a Turkish export license.