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In June 2026, I visited Khartoum, my hometown, for the first time since the war broke out in Sudan in April 2023. I left the city to seek safety with my family after the war spread into civilian neighborhoods. I never imagined I would return to the same city. I was very excited but also traumatized by the destruction I saw as the plane landed at Khartoum International Airport. The airport was busy, with many Sudanese returning after commercial flights resumed in May 2026. But the growing drone warfare that is spreading over Sudan threatens the return of hopeful Sudanese to their homes and normal life.
Sudan’s war has begun in April 2023. The Sudanese Armed Forces are locked in a battle with the Rapid Support Forces, an ethnic militia that grew out of the notorious Janjaweed forces. However, this time, a non-state militia is operating and using strategic drones in military operations. The Rapid Support Forces began using limited-range drones during the first month of the war in Khartoum. The Sudanese Armed Forces followed, with the help of Ukraine, turning civilian drones into armed drones, which proved to be very effective in urban warfare. This limited use did not last long. The Rapid Support Forces began using long-range drones soon after the Sudanese army recaptured the capital, Khartoum, in March 2025. In May 2025, the Rapid Support Forces were able to attack Port Sudan, Sudan’s de facto capital and humanitarian hub, from hundreds of kilometers away from the Rapid Support Forces’ strongholds. The nature of the drones and munitions used remains contested. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab reported on April 24, 2025, that the Rapid Support Forces have six Chinese-manufactured CH-95 or FH-95 drones at Nyala Airport. These drones have a 250-kilometer range, which can reach Port Sudan. Moreover, the Centre for Information Resilience found similarities between remnants of the attack in Port Sudan and remnants reportedly from an earlier Rapid Support Forces attack in al-Malha, North Darfur. The attacks caused a total power outage in the city and suspended humanitarian flights to the country’s international airport.
The United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. and E.U. security partner, is prolonging Sudan’s war and destabilizing the wider region by providing advanced drone technology to the Rapid Support Forces, a non-state militia responsible for genocide and grave war crimes.
According to Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, over 1,100 civilians had died in drone strikes between January and June 2026, accounting for roughly 80 percent of all recorded civilian deaths in that period. When I was in Khartoum in June 2026, I saw the destructive results of drone attacks on civilian infrastructure, as well as on airports and power stations. The Sudanese Armed Forces intercepted a couple of drone attacks when I was there. Electricity became a rare commodity in Khartoum, which appeared totally dark at night, mostly due to the destruction of this infrastructure. Merowe Dam, which is the largest dam in Sudan, suffered several drone attacks by the Rapid Support Forces. According to Sudan’s minister of energy, the electricity sector has lost about $14 billion since the war started.
The war in Sudan is already a regional proxy war. However, it has recently become a testing lab for a new drone-technology race between Chinese and Turkish systems. The battle for air supremacy has driven both sides to update their technology quickly, as their drones and air defense (also used as anti-drone systems) have become ineffective. The Sudanese Armed Forces would acquire a new Turkish drone and attack a Rapid Support Forces-controlled area — the Rapid Support Forces, in return, would deploy a Chinese anti-aircraft system.
By September 2025, Janes had verified three crashes of Turkish-made Akıncı drones and identified a missile booster in Rapid Support Forces footage closely resembling a component of the Chinese-made FK-2000 air defense system. Soon after, the Rapid Support Forces attacked a Sudanese Armed Forces-controlled region, pushing the Sudanese Armed Forces to upgrade its existing Turkish anti-drone system to HİSAR-A, a Turkish defense system that can counter the newly used Chinese technology. In February 2026, a Bayraktar Akıncı operated by the Sudanese Armed Forces destroyed a Chinese-made FK-2000 air defense system used by the Rapid Support Forces in South Kordofan. That’s how the war quickly transitioned into a technology race between the two global competitors in the military drone industry.
Furthermore, the Rapid Support Forces’ possession of advanced drone systems will have disastrous consequences for regional security. The Rapid Support Forces operate in western Sudan and Chad and have recruited fighters from Arab tribes scattered across the Sahel. Those fighters could transfer the Rapid Support Forces’ drone technology across the border into the Sahel region, where terrorist and militant groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are active.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Colombian entities and mercenaries that not only trained the Rapid Support Forces’ soldiers, but also piloted drones. In 2024, the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research further reported that terrorist groups and non-state actors have already acquired limited-range drones (quadcopters) for surveillance, intelligence, and propaganda purposes. More importantly, the report highlighted an increase in the terrorist deployment of drones around armed conflict settings, especially in the Lake Chad Basin region, where the Rapid Support Forces recruit through ethnic networks. The threat here is about knowledge transfer from the Rapid Support Forces’ strategic drone operations.
In addition, drone proliferation in the Horn of Africa, especially in the hands of non-state actors, can endanger the strategic trade route along the Red Sea, which has already faced disruption by Houthi drone attacks.
Armies have widely used drones in warfare, but the war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed how militaries utilize them. These range from civilian drones repurposed for military use to strategic, long-range, low-cost suicide drones. Both sides used strategic drones (those with long-range and high-altitude capabilities) in early 2022 as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, but the Horn of Africa saw their first use in war by an African country, ultimately changing the trajectory of the Tigray War between Ethiopia’s federal army and the Tigrayan regional army in 2021. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front had been advancing southward toward Addis Ababa, the capital, when the government reversed the tide in a very successful counteroffensive. Analysts pointed to Ethiopia’s government acquiring various strategic drones from China, Turkey, and Iran as the reason behind those battlefield victories.
Reports show that the Rapid Support Forces acquired these new strategic drones from Chinese companies through the United Arab Emirates. While it denies any support for the Rapid Support Forces, multiple U.N. and media reports have repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates of arming and supporting the Rapid Support Forces since the beginning of the war. In fact, the New York Times reported that Emirati personnel were directing these Chinese drones from bases in Chad near the Sudanese border. This new weaponry has enabled the Rapid Support Forces to attack cities and civilian communities that were far from the war zones. In October 2026, Rapid Support Forces drones attacked a displacement shelter, killing at least 13 children in al-Obeid, a city in the Kordofan region that has been under Rapid Support Forces siege since February of 2025.
The Rapid Support Forces’ drone attacks on civilian infrastructure may appear distant from its military strategy on the battlefront in western Sudan and North Kordofan state after the militia’s defeat in central Sudan. However, these drone attacks aim to hinder the return of millions of refugees and the displaced Sudanese population who left their homes after the war. A recent International Organization for Migration report indicated that about 4.65 million displaced civilians have returned to Sudan. That said, attacks on electricity grids, oil depots, and airports instill fear among returnees and deepen their suffering.
The Sudanese Armed Forces, on the other hand, have expanded their drone operations, relying heavily on Turkish-made aircraft. Although the army also operates Iranian drones, Turkish strategic drones and anti-aircraft systems play a prominent role in its recent operations. In 2024, Baykar, Turkey’s largest defense company, provided the Sudanese Armed Forces with eight TB2 drones and 600 warheads for about $120 million. As a result, the Sudanese military was able to strike Nyala, the Rapid Support Forces stronghold in South Darfur, repeatedly. Sudan’s army drone strikes have also killed civilians in Darfur. In August 2026, the Emergency Lawyers Group, a local rights organization, reported an army drone attack on a court session that killed 35 people. Recent reports show that the Sudanese Armed Forces have struck beyond Sudan’s borders, disrupting Rapid Support Forces logistical routes. In February 2026, the New York Times reported an Egyptian air base used for drone operations by the Sudanese Armed Forces to attack Rapid Support Forces supply and recruitment routes from Libya and northern Chad. Recently, Chad has accused the Sudanese government of striking locations within its borders.
On the eastern front near the Ethiopian border, the Sudanese Armed Forces claim to have downed strategic drones. Many reports indicate that the Rapid Support Forces have built a military training camp in western Ethiopian territory, including a recent report by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab that warned about imminent attacks on Sudan’s Blue Nile State, which borders Ethiopia. These attacks now threaten civilians in Sudan’s eastern states, which were far away from military operations during previous years.
The proliferation of drone warfare in Sudan is met with inaction. The U.N. Security Council has extended the Darfur sanctions regime established under Resolution 1591 until Dec. 11, 2026. The U.S. envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos, proposed an all-country weapons embargo on Sudan, which was not successful. But Boulos reiterated that the United States remained committed to expanding the embargo across Sudan to protect civilians from increasingly frequent drone attacks.
However, that step is unrealistic and inadequate, because China, Russia, and other council members want to keep the sanctions limited to Darfur. Sudan’s ambassador rejected it outright, arguing that expanding the arms embargo over Sudan would unfairly impose the same restrictions on the state protecting civilians as on the militias attacking them. The United Nations has had an arms embargo on Darfur since 2004 — which the United Arab Emirates and other actors have not respected — as weapons continue to reach the region. Additionally, the arms embargo would not significantly affect non-state actors, which are not bound by international law. Turkey might be inclined to restrict its arms sales because of its interest in Western markets and its membership in the NATO alliance, but the United Arab Emirates has no such inclination.
Instead, international and U.S. sanctions regimes should target non-state actors such as the Rapid Support Forces and designate them, and the Emirati arms companies that facilitate its arms deals, as terrorist organizations. Congress should also block further U.S. arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and pass the Stand Up for Sudan Act to prohibit arms sales until Abu Dhabi ceases its support for the Rapid Support Forces.
Furthermore, existing international law prohibits inherently indiscriminate systems, but there is a need for Sudan-focused arms measures to address drone proliferation. The Arms Trade Treaty provides an existing framework to block non-state militias from acquiring advanced drone systems. China is a state party to the treaty and should take steps to block its weapons diversion to Sudan. It should prohibit transfers that violate the binding U.N. arms embargo under Article 6. Article 7 requires export assessments, including the risk of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and refusal of authorization where an overriding risk remains after considering mitigation measures. Article 11 requires measures to prevent diversion, including assessing diversion risks and addressing detected diversion. The United Arab Emirates is not a state party but has been a signatory to the treaty since 2013. The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union all have arms trade deals with the United Arab Emirates, and they should block these deals until the United Arab Emirates respects the treaty and the Darfur arms embargo. If non-state actors such as the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan continue to acquire drone and anti-drone technology, this will disrupt civilian return and humanitarian access. It will also disturb regional stability if drone technology reaches armed groups in neighboring countries through regional arms networks that stretch beyond Sudan.
Yasir Zaidan, Ph.D., is an adjunct lecturer in Seattle University’s Department of Political Science and an instructor at the University of Washington, where he earned his Ph.D. from the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. His research examines Middle Eastern influence in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea port development. Previously a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he holds a master’s degree in statecraft and national security affairs from the Institute of World Politics and an electrical engineering degree from the University of Khartoum in Sudan.
Image: Fatma AbdAli via Wikimedia Commons
