Podcast transcript
Five Cents looks at Sudan’s drones and why they have become central to a war once defined by ground battles.
We’ll examine the recent strike on a court in North Darfur, the fight around El Obeid, and the growing danger to water, markets, and aid routes. The clearest place to start is with what drones let both sides do.
They allow Sudan’s regular army, the SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, to strike far beyond their front lines without sending large formations into immediate combat.
That matters in a country where roads are contested, distances are vast, and the rainy season can slow ground operations. A drone can target a convoy, fuel depot, road junction, or urban area while the force operating it remains far away.
That does not mean drones have replaced ground warfare. They are increasingly used to prepare it, disrupt supplies, or wear down an opponent.
Around Kordofan, they have become part of a contest over movement and access, rather than just territory on a map.
The SAF, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has the advantages of a conventional military and wider state infrastructure.
The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, is a paramilitary force with strong positions in Darfur and contested areas of Kordofan.
Drones give the RSF a way to threaten distant targets, even without conventional control of the skies.
The human cost has been severe.
The UN human-rights office documented more than one thousand civilian deaths from drone strikes between January and May this year. It also recorded attacks on health facilities and markets.
Both sides use drones, and the pattern has spread beyond Darfur and Kordofan into other parts of the country.
The recent strike on a traditional court in Garra al-Zawaya, North Darfur, shows why attribution and context matter.
On August second, a drone hit a court operating in RSF-controlled territory. A Sudanese rights group said at least thirty-five people were killed, including local leaders and reportedly some RSF commanders.
The strike was attributed to the SAF. But the details come largely from witness and rights-group reporting, not a public military investigation.
The court was a civilian-facing institution. But it was also in territory administered by the RSF and reportedly attended by RSF figures.
That does not settle the legal questions around the attack. It does show how civilians and armed actors are increasingly operating in the same places, with devastating consequences when those places are struck.
Kordofan is the strategic centre of this shift, especially the city of El Obeid.
It connects central Sudan to western regions and is a vital transport and humanitarian hub.
Recent drone activity around North Kordofan has been concentrated near routes and localities linked to El Obeid.
The apparent military logic is straightforward. The RSF can try to isolate SAF forces and strain the city’s supply lines. The SAF can target RSF reinforcements and logistics before a larger offensive takes shape.
That is why the number of strikes alone is not the main signal to watch.
More telling would be a sustained combination of troop movements, attacks on the El Obeid-Kosti road, pressure on fuel and water systems, and tighter restrictions on aid.
That would point less to scattered harassment, and more to preparation for a siege or a major battle.
For civilians, drones turn infrastructure into a frontline.
A strike on a water truck in North Kordofan reportedly caused casualties and further reduced water access.
In El Obeid, the water system was already meeting only a fraction of the city’s needs.
A separate reported drone attack on a relief truck destroyed around fifty tonnes of supplies intended for people in South Kordofan.
Those attacks can have effects far beyond the immediate blast.
They delay food deliveries, interrupt health services, raise transport costs, and make humanitarian staff less able to reach communities.
In a country already facing mass displacement and hunger, damaging a road or a truck can be as consequential as taking a military position.
There is also an international dimension.
Reporting on RSF supply networks has pointed to regional air routes and foreign-linked commercial logistics.
That does not prove the origin of every drone in the conflict. But it underlines that Sudan’s drone war is not simply an improvised local development.
Access to aircraft, transit corridors, components, and outside support can shape who sustains their campaign.
International humanitarian law requires all parties to distinguish military targets from civilians, take precautions, and avoid disproportionate attacks.
Limited access makes it difficult to classify every incident.
Still, the repeated reports of strikes affecting markets, hospitals, water systems, and aid transport raise serious concerns that deserve independent investigation.
The main takeaway is that drones are extending the war without resolving it.
They give both the SAF and RSF a cheaper, longer-range way to inflict damage while avoiding some of the risks of major ground operations.
El Obeid and the Kordofan corridors are now the key test of whether that pressure remains a substitute for a ground campaign, or becomes its opening stage.
To continue, you can generate Five Cents El Obeid: Sudan’s next battle, or Five Cents Aid under fire in Sudan, for a closer look at the city’s strategic stakes and the struggle to keep relief moving.
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