Sudan alleges 70 attacks involving 187 drones in complaint over launches from Ethiopia

Sudan has filed complaints with the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, alleging drone attacks linked to launches from Ethiopian territory.² The Transitional Sovereignty Council’s report counts 70 assaults involving 187 one-way attack drones between February 15 and October 27.² Those figures describe two different measures: the number of reported assaults and the number of drones involved, not an assertion that each assault used the same number.² The complaint is therefore presented alongside an incident count and a drone count, rather than as an accusation with no reported figures attached.²

Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, of using Ethiopian territory to send drones against civilian locations and power stations in Sudan.² The ministry said the alleged strikes caused casualties and interrupted essential services, while also arguing that the incidents placed Ethiopia before international law.² The Transitional Sovereignty Council report said armed drones had departed from Ethiopian soil to hit Sudanese cities and civilians since February 2026.² It named Asosa Airport, the Kurmuk-Gizen border area and Bahir Dar airbase as sites from which the drones allegedly launched.²

The reported total includes 484 civilians killed or wounded, as well as 176 Sudanese soldiers killed and another 200 wounded, according to the council report.² The civilian figure combines deaths and injuries, whereas the two military figures are reported separately as deaths and wounds.² These categories should not be treated as identical measures: the report distinguishes civilians from soldiers and does not break the civilian total into separate death and injury counts.² The ministry’s broader statement that the alleged attacks caused casualties is consistent with the report’s presentation of harm to both civilian and military populations.²

The council report said 28 attacks involving 97 drones took place last month, making that reported interval a sizeable part of the broader count running from February 15 to October 27.² The shorter-period totals count assaults and drones separately, just as the full-period figures do, so they offer two comparisons rather than one combined measure.² The report also described an October 9 strike on displaced families in Wad el-Mahi, where it said 30 civilians died and 100 were wounded.² That incident is presented as a specific example within the report, while the larger casualty totals cover the reported attacks across the wider period.²

Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said it had sent documents it regarded as evidence of the alleged launches and asked Ethiopia to stop the operations.³ The complaints were directed to the UN Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, the bodies Sudan approached over the alleged attacks.² The ministry’s position is an allegation about the use of Ethiopian territory; the supplied account attributes that claim to Sudan rather than reporting it as an independently established finding.²³ Sudan’s military has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of helping the RSF, while Ethiopia has accused Sudan’s military of supporting rebels linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, an allegation Khartoum rejected.²

The allegations arise during a war between Sudan’s army and the RSF that began in April 2023 amid a dispute over bringing the paramilitary force into the military.³ That background places the complaint within an existing conflict between the two armed forces, while the rival claims about support for armed groups add a separate dispute between Sudan and Ethiopia.²³ The United Nations has said drone strikes caused hundreds of civilian deaths across Sudan and Abyei, including deaths among women and children.³ That UN account concerns civilian deaths across those areas and is distinct from the Sudanese council’s figures for civilians and soldiers in its report.²³

UN-appointed independent investigators reported that RSF drone attacks and arbitrary arrests by the Sudanese Armed Forces were creating fear among civilians in El Obeid.⁴ The investigators warned that the war was spreading across more places, relying on more sophisticated technology and posing greater danger to civilians.⁴ Their Mission reported damage in El Obeid to homes, schools, displacement sites, and electricity and water systems from RSF drone strikes.⁴ The Mission said those strikes may amount to war crimes, a qualified assessment rather than a statement that a legal determination had been made.⁴

An expert told the Mission that around 30 per cent of hospitals in El Obeid remained operational after attacks, a measure of service availability rather than a count of hospitals damaged.⁴ The Mission was also investigating a reported October 19 drone strike on a market in Abyei that killed at least 80 people.⁴ The reported hospital status and market deaths concern different places and forms of harm, and neither figure is part of the council’s reported Sudan-wide attack count.²⁴ Separate reporting on damage to essential systems and the limited share of operational hospitals is consistent with the Sudanese ministry’s allegation that drone attacks disrupted services and struck infrastructure.²⁴

The UN secretary-general’s spokesman condemned escalating drone attacks by parties to the conflict and said the strikes violated international humanitarian law.² The United Nations also urged the parties to stop hostilities promptly, protect civilians and critical infrastructure, and engage sincerely in mediation.³ Together, these UN statements address the conduct and civilian consequences of drone warfare, while Sudan’s complaint specifically alleges that the RSF used Ethiopian territory for launches.²³ The complaint’s figures, the UN’s reporting on harm in other locations, and the ministry’s claims about infrastructure describe related concerns but remain distinct accounts with different scopes.²³⁴