Avery Warfield
On 11 October 2025, a drone strike by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) tore through a displacement shelter at Dar al-Arqam, part of Omdurman Islamic University in El Fasher, North Darfur, killing at least 57 people, including 22 women and 17 children. According to witnesses and activists, the drone attack was followed by heavy artillery fire that ripped through the already war-torn city.
This single strike is just one in a series of drone attacks that signal how drones have transformed the Sudan civil war. Once a peripheral technology, Drones have become central to the RSF’s campaign and to the Sudanese Armed Forces’ counterattacks. The conflict, which began in April 2023 as a power struggle between two generals, has since descended into one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises. Tens of thousands have died, millions have fled, and cities like Khartoum and El Fasher have become battlefields of both ground and air.
Early in the war, fighting was dominated by ground combat: sieges, artillery, and urban destruction. But over time, both sides turned to drone warfare for an edge. The RSF in particular began using drones not only for reconnaissance but also for precision, or, as often in Sudan’s case, indiscriminate strikes on civilians and infrastructure. In January 2025, a drone hit the Saudi Maternal Teaching Hospital in El Fasher, killing more than 70 people, according to the World Health Organization. Other strikes have targeted power plants, water stations, and even marketplaces.
In January of this year, a series of drone attacks crippled Sudan’s electricity grid, knocking out power in major army-held regions after drones struck substations and the Merowe Dam. Hospitals lost refrigeration, causing medicine and food supplies to spoil, deepening the suffering for millions already displaced. Later, in May 2025, drone strikes hit airports and fuel depots in Kassala and Port Sudan. These incidents reveal how drones have shifted from experimental weapons to tools of control and terror.
The New Logic of the War
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