the foreign drones fuelling Sudan’s civil war

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan put on a brave face in response to the shock bombardment of Port Sudan this month, vowing to defeat the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces he holds responsible “and all those who support them”.

“May the eyes of cowards never sleep,” said Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the country’s de facto ruler, repeating a proverb from a 7th-century Arab commander as a fuel depot was engulfed by flames behind him.

His defiance may, according to one resident, have momentarily reassured the population of Sudan’s wartime capital, which includes tens of thousands of people who have fled other parts of the country.

The reality, however, is that the army was caught off guard, a source close to Burhan’s administration said. Over successive days the city has come under fire from kamikaze drones and military-grade unmanned aerial vehicles, dramatically shifting the dynamic in the country’s ruinous two-year civil war.

Having lost territory to the army in the first months of the year across swaths of central Sudan and ceding the ruined capital Khartoum in late March, the RSF has now proven its ability to fight back from the skies.

Drones believed to come from China and the United Arab Emirates, identified by defence analysts from battlefield remnants and satellite imagery, have put previously safe places such as Port Sudan, on the country’s eastern Red Sea coast and more than 1,200km from any established RSF base, within range of the militia.

Led by Burhan’s former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemeti, the RSF has been embroiled in a power struggle with the army since falling out in April 2023.

“Whenever you think the army has begun to turn the tide and the RSF are on the back foot, you have seen the RSF and [its alleged backers in the] UAE double down,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Sudan. “They get driven out of Khartoum . . . But now they have opened up the whole country.”

The drone attacks have put a spotlight on the ways in which external actors and foreign weaponry have fuelled the conflict, which is estimated to have killed more than 150,000 people and displaced more than 12mn, with both sides committing atrocities.

The SAF enjoyed air superiority at the onset thanks to its air force and, having long used Iranian surveillance drones as artillery support, also appeared to have stolen a march on the RSF in the deployment of UAVs.

From June 2024, the SAF took delivery of the same Turkish Bayraktar TB2 UAVs that gave the Ethiopian armed forces an advantage in that country’s recent civil war, according to Wim Zwijnenburg, head of the Humanitarian Disarmament project at Dutch peace organisation PAX and an expert on drones.

More recently, its deployment of Turkish and Iranian drones — including Mohajer-6 UAVs capable of carrying guided bombs — during the battles running up to the capture of Khartoum helped turn the tide in the army’s favour, according to analysts.

The RSF has also stepped up its use of drones, striking in recent months at military and civilian infrastructure deep inside SAF-controlled territory, including a hydroelectric dam on the Nile at Merowe. The bombardment of a power station on Wednesday pitched Khartoum and the surrounding state into darkness.

The paramilitaries’ drone attacks on Port Sudan appear to have been retaliation for a May 2 SAF air strike on the airport at Nyala in western Darfur province.

Nyala is where satellite imagery analysed by Yale University’s humanitarian research lab has shown the RSF, which originated in the camel- and horse-borne “Janjaweed” that ravaged Darfur in the early part of the century, to have been building up drone capacity. This includes 12 or more Chinese-made Ch-95 and FH-95 UAVs, which are capable of delivering guided missiles.

The SAF strike destroyed a cargo plane delivering more weapons to the RSF in Nyala and killed foreign technical advisers, said a person close to the authorities in Port Sudan as well as several people monitoring the war.

The subsequent precision strikes on Port Sudan showed either that the RSF had rapidly gained the skills to operate sophisticated UAV technology or that foreign actors were assisting in flying the missions, defence analysts said. Given the likely long distance of the flights beyond the range of radio command, they would have required satellite guidance.

“They must have foreign assistance on operating these things,” said a western expert in drone technology, who asked not to be named.

Burhan’s government has blamed the UAE for providing that support and supplying the weapons, an allegation Abu Dhabi denies. But after months of trading accusations, and a growing body of evidence pointing to the UAE’s involvement, Burhan last week severed diplomatic ties, designating the country a hostile state.

In response, the UAE said it did not recognise the Port Sudan authority as “the legitimate government of Sudan”.

Among targets that were hit in Port Sudan were military and naval bases, a hotel frequented by foreign guests, the country’s only functioning civilian airport and fuel depots. Electricity supplies to much of the city were cut off.

“This was a wake-up call for the leaders here because after they conquered Khartoum . . . everyone was busy dividing the cake and they forgot about the war,” the person close to the authorities said.

As well as highlighting how weak SAF air defences were, the drone attacks underscored how the paramilitary group — which the US has accused of committing genocide — continues to procure foreign weaponry in breach of a UN arms embargo.

Amnesty International released a report last week saying Chinese weaponry, likely re-exported by the UAE, was captured in Khartoum after the RSF’s defeat. Amnesty’s analysis of pictures from the aftermath of RSF attacks, including at Port Sudan, identified Chinese-made GB50A guided missiles and 155mm AH-4 howitzers.

The UAE denied these allegations, saying they were “unsubstantiated” and “baseless”. The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.

The origins of drones used by the RSF in the Port Sudan attacks are still under investigation. Zwijnenburg, the UAV expert, said drones similar to models made in the UAE and showcased at weapons shows in the Gulf had been recovered from the battlefield.

He has also traced Chinese-made long-range UAVs in RSF hands and said a Chinese GB50, or smaller GB25 guided missile, was used to target the hotel in Port Sudan.

Abdalla Hamdok, the former prime minister who led the transitional government overthrown by Burhan and Hemeti, said it was striking that the RSF had been able to acquire such sophisticated technology, and that it could only have done so with powerful external support.

“SAF had the air supremacy. Now this is very much diminished,” Hamdok told the Financial Times, adding that there was now “no place in the country that you can call safe — more cause for stopping this madness”.

The UN has been warning for months of the scale of the humanitarian disaster in Sudan and the looming threat of famine. Any hope that Khartoum’s fall might presage a lull in fighting has been all but extinguished.

“The army had been signalling that the RSF was on its last legs,” said Ahmed Soliman, a Horn of Africa expert at Chatham House. “This is the RSF quite literally shooting back.”