UN condemns drone strikes on Sudan’s power and fuel as counts of the dead diverge fourfold
The Secretary-General says drone attacks have killed hundreds of civilians; the peacekeeping chief told the Security Council at least 30 died in Abyei last month. On a single strike three days old, three Sudanese outlets published death tolls of four, ten and sixteen.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the Secretary-General “strongly condemned the escalating drone attacks by parties to the conflict,” according to Dabanga’s report republished by allAfrica on 4 November. In a statement two days earlier the Secretary-General said drone strikes had killed hundreds of civilians, including women and children, across Sudan and the Abyei area, called it a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, and urged the parties to accept an immediate cessation of hostilities and engage with mediation led by his personal envoy, Pekka Haavisto. The UN warned that deliberately targeting power stations and other civilian infrastructure not constituting a military objective violates IHL and could amount to a war crime. At the Security Council on Thursday, UN News reported, the peacekeeping chief said drone strikes killed at least 30 people in Abyei last month, and the IOM warned that about 100,000 people could lose access to healthcare if the only clinic at the Wunthou crossing on the Sudan–South Sudan border closes, possible by December without urgent funding.
The Critical Threats Project, whose Africa File of 5 November carries a 10am data cutoff, says it has recorded 21 sets of RSF strikes on fuel facilities or power stations, including in or around Ad Damazin, Wad Madani, Rabak, Sinja, Omdurman and Khartoum, and characterises the RSF as having intensified infrastructure targeting since mid-2026. CTP is affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute and frames its analysis around US interests. On the other side of the ledger, Sudan Tribune reported on 5 November that authorities had tracked more than 180 drones over two months and downed most of them — a claim from a single unnamed Sudanese military source with an obvious interest in advertising interception rates. The same piece says six markets have been bombed, most notably Nyala. Sudan Tribune separately headlined, on about 5 November, two women killed in a Sudanese army airstrike on a North Kordofan water source; we have not read that report in full.
Assessment: Two things are being counted badly. The first is the dead: an OSINT compilation on a personal Substack lines up the tolls published for the 3 November strike on the Nawafil station at Al-Abbasiya Tagali, where civilians were queuing for fuel — at least four per Dabanga, more than ten per Darfur24, at least sixteen per Sudan Now. A factor of four, three days on, among outlets that all cover Sudan seriously. The second is attribution: almost every strike tally in circulation this week counts RSF drones. The SAF’s air war on markets and water points is reported in headlines and seldom in the same paragraph. A UN headline citing 306 drone deaths in three weeks is circulating; until the source document and its methodology are in hand, it is not a number.