Sudan's Drone Hell: Who Profits When Cheap Weapons Meet Civil War

The Sky Above Sudan Has Become a Killing Zone

Seventy-nine percent. That is the share of civilian deaths in Sudan this year caused by drones, according to Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief. Out of roughly 1,400 confirmed civilian fatalities in the first half of the year, more than 1,100 fell from the sky.

The number is stark not because drone warfare is new — Ukraine and Gaza have made that clear — but because it is happening here, in a civil war that Western media rarely covers with the gravity it deserves. Sudan’s conflict, now in its fourth year, is becoming the first African internal war where cheap, commercially available UAVs have become the dominant instrument of civilian slaughter.

On September 8, an RSF-launched drone struck near a courthouse in Um Rawaba, a government-held city in central Sudan. Thirteen people died. Twenty-two were wounded. The attack came during a time when citizens were gathered on the streets — a detail that matters. Drones like these do not discriminate between military targets and market squares, courthouses and hospital courtyards. They find crowds.

This is not the first time the RSF has used drones against civilian infrastructure. In January 2024, an RSF drone hit a hospital in West Darfur, killing approximately 70 people. In September of that same year, a mosque in North Darfur was struck, with 75 killed. Each attack followed the same pattern: a low-cost platform, a high-casualty result, and a geopolitical supply chain that points in directions few correspondents trace.

The Supply Chains No One Talks About

Here is what the reporting suggests, though neither side will confirm it outright: the Sudanese government forces are operating Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drones — aircraft with a 2,000-kilometer range capable of carrying bombs — alongside locally assembled variants designated Jazirah-3. The RSF, meanwhile, appears to be receiving drones through the United Arab Emirates, which has acknowledged purchasing Chinese-made UAVs but denies supplying them to Sudan. The UAE denies the allegation outright.

Then there is Colombia. A UN fact-finding mission reported in early September that up to 2,000 Colombian mercenaries are providing advanced weapon systems and drone technology to the RSF. That number — 2,000 — is large enough to suggest an organized, state-linked operation rather than loose contractor activity. It also raises the uncomfortable question of what the Colombian government knows about, or implicitly approves of, this deployment.

The picture that emerges is one of a proxy war fought with tools that cost a fraction of what traditional military hardware commands. A suicide drone modified to carry a 120mm mortar shell — the kind of improvisation the RSF has reportedly undertaken at a base in Nyala, South Darfur — can be built for tens of thousands of dollars. It can kill hundreds.

This is the arithmetic of modern asymmetric warfare: the defender spends millions on air defense; the attacker spends thousands on a drone. The math favors the attacker every time.

What Changes When Drones Reach Non-State Actors

Sudan is not the first conflict where non-state actors have wielded drones. The Houthi movement in Yemen did it first, striking Saudi oil facilities and Emirati military bases with improvised UAVs. But Sudan represents something different. This is not a border war between states, or a rebellion against a recognized government. It is a civil war between two arms factions — the Sudanese military under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces under his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

Both sides now have access to the same category of weapon. Both are using it against civilian populations. And both are doing so with systems whose origins trace back to a handful of supplier states that face no meaningful consequences for their transfers.

The result is a conflict that is spreading faster and killing more efficiently than any previous Sudanese civil war. The death toll from direct combat exceeds 59,000. When disease and starvation are counted — and they always are in prolonged sieges — the figure rises above 200,000. Fourteen million people, nearly two-thirds of the population, have been displaced. UNICEF says 33.7 million require humanitarian aid.

The drone war is accelerating all of this.

Who Wins, Who Loses

The winners in Sudan’s drone economy are the suppliers. Iran, which manufactures the Mohajer-6, gains a testing ground for weapons that could be replicated in conflicts from the Sahel to Southeast Asia. The RSF’s use of UAE-sourced and Chinese-origin drones creates demand that feeds a market extending far beyond Sudan’s borders. Colombian mercenaries earn wages that few could refuse in a country where armed conflict has displaced millions.

The losers are predictable and enormous: the civilians of Khartoum, Darfur, and the central regions who live under a sky that is no longer safe. A drone strike on a market in southern Khartoum five months into the war killed 47 people. A strike on a mosque killed 75. The RSF once attempted to assassinate General al-Burhan himself with a drone — a plot that failed, but demonstrated the weapon’s reach and the willingness to use it.

The international response has been minimal. The US, UK, and EU have attempted mediation several times. Nothing has held. Amnesty International described the situation this week as a spiral of violence and suffering unfolding under international indifference.

What Comes Next

Sudan is likely to become the template for the next decade of African conflict. The technology is cheap. The suppliers are numerous. The regulatory frameworks are nonexistent. Any faction with access to capital — through gold mining in Darfur, through mercenary contracts in Bogotá, through ports in the Gulf — can arm itself with the means to rain death from above.

The UN investigation has already concluded that both sides have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, and that some acts may constitute war crimes. But conclusions without enforcement are just documents.

What distinguishes Sudan from Ukraine or Gaza is that there is no great-power stakes driving sustained attention. No NATO member is arming one side. No permanent Security Council member is directly involved. The world watches, records, and moves on — while 14 million people flee and 200,000 die under an increasingly lethal sky.