UNICEF warned on Tuesday that long range armed drones are changing the character of Sudan’s war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Spokesperson James Elder, speaking in Geneva after returning from Sudan, said that in the last week of October not a single day passed without a drone strike on a power station, that up to 15 power stations were hit in October, and that some of the drones now in use travel 1,500 kilometres before reaching their targets.
Elder said it was impossible for humanitarian agencies to ascertain who was behind at least 15 strikes on power stations in October. That attribution gap matters: earlier Sudanese government claims that strikes were launched from Ethiopian territory remain claims, and this briefing does not support them. What UNICEF documents is the effect. This year in Sudan, two in three child casualties were killed by armed drones, the agency said.
Unlike in Ukraine, Elder stressed, struck Sudanese power stations are not repaired. When a power station is hit, water pumps stop and water treatment stops, forcing families into expensive and unsafe alternatives, while farmers lose irrigation as generator fuel becomes unaffordable and cholera pockets spread as the vaccine cold chain comes under threat.
The agency estimates 825,000 children under five in Sudan are expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition this year, and well over 15 million people urgently require shelter. UNICEF says it has provided healthcare to more than 2.5 million people and kept safe water flowing for close to eight million, but its Sudan response is just one third funded.