The UN says long-range strikes are now the norm in Sudan. The strikes are going both ways

UN News published on 10 November a piece built around a UNICEF alert, headlined “Sudan war: First ‘suicide' drone attacks, now long-range strikes are the norm,” centred on El-Obeid Maternity Hospital in North Kordofan as tens of thousands flee violence in neighbouring South Kordofan into the city. The UNICEF casualty figures behind the alert were not available in the reporting retrieved for this desk. The documentary spine for El Obeid remains the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, which reported in late October that RSF drone strikes continue to kill and injure civilians there, damaging homes, schools, displacement sites and electricity and water systems, and may amount to war crimes. The same report documents mass arbitrary arrest on the other side. Mona Rishmawi, an expert member of the mission, said: “Thousands have been arrested by SAF security cells, detained and tortured in unofficial locations and in El Obeid Central Prison, kept under appalling conditions.”

The escalation is bilateral, and that is the part most coverage omits. The Critical Threats Project’s Africa File of 5 November assesses that the RSF drone campaign serves to degrade SAF supply lines and undermine SAF governance — and states that “the SAF has intensified its own drone attack campaign in densely populated areas in RSF-controlled Sudan since October 2026, increasing the humanitarian toll on civilians,” citing strikes on commercial centres, residential areas and heavily trafficked routes. ISW is a think tank with a declared analytical posture; this is an assessment, not a finding. On the RSF side, Sudan Tribune reported strikes on 1 November that knocked the Al Dabbah and Abu Hamad power stations in Northern State out of service and killed a civilian at a fuel station. The cabinet responded by ordering a maximum state of alert and threatening “maximum penalties” for anyone proven to have supplied the RSF with targeting coordinates.

The fronts are widening. In Blue Nile, a suspected RSF drone strike on a village near Ed Damazin killed nine on 10 November, logged by the CFR Global Conflict Tracker from Sudan Tribune reporting; the same tracker records the RSF and allied militias reportedly capturing the Sali military base on 3 November, sourced to Sudans Post, a small regional outlet. In West Kordofan, Sudan Tribune reported on 8 November that the army and allied groups had taken territory and downed a third long-range drone — an account the outlet itself marks as the army’s, with no independent battlefield verification. And on 3 November Al Jazeera reported that Sudan had lodged a formal UN complaint over drone attacks it attributes to launchpads in Ethiopia; Ethiopia ordered six Sudanese diplomats out the following day, with Sudan Tribune reporting mutual consulate-staff expulsions. Ethiopia denies supporting the RSF.

Assessment: A shift from loitering munitions to long-range strike is a supply-chain claim before it is a tactical one, and it points at patrons — which is why Khartoum’s Ethiopian accusation deserves neither credulity nor dismissal. Either the Port Sudan government is manufacturing a second enemy to explain losses it cannot otherwise account for, or the RSF’s supply geography has genuinely widened past the familiar Gulf map. No Ethiopian official statement was available to this desk. Note also what the cabinet’s decree of 1–2 November actually is: a counter-intelligence and internal-repression instrument announced as an air-defence measure. Counts of downed drones issued by one belligerent remain advocacy until a second source dates them.