Sharp rise in use of ‘high-tech and relatively cheap weapons’ devastates populated areas as Kordofan region emerges as deadliest battlefield in three-year civil war.
GENEVA — More than 500 civilians have been killed in drone strikes across Sudan between January and mid-March, with the vast majority of deaths concentrated in the strategic Kordofan region, the United Nations said Tuesday, highlighting a sharp escalation in the use of unmanned aerial weapons in the country’s civil war.
Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the UN rights office, told reporters in Geneva that the toll reflected “the devastating impact of high-tech and relatively cheap weapons in populated areas.” According to data gathered by the office, over 500 civilians lost their lives in such strikes from January 1 to March 15.
“The vast majority of these civilian deaths were documented in three states in the Kordofan region,” Hurtado said.
Southern Kordofan has become the most intense battlefield in the three-year conflict between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The region serves as a critical corridor linking RSF strongholds in western Darfur with army-controlled territories in the east. Near-daily drone strikes have killed dozens at a time as the army seeks to halt the RSF’s advance, pushing paramilitary forces back toward Darfur and away from the capital, Khartoum.
In the first two weeks of March alone, the UN documented over 277 civilian deaths, more than three-quarters of which were attributed to drone strikes. Hurtado noted that “deadly attacks have continued in the past week, as the holy month of Ramadan came to a close.”
She singled out a March 20 attack on the first day of Eid Al-Fitr against El-Daein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur state. That strike killed 70 people, including 13 children, and injured 146 others. The hospital’s emergency, maternity, and pediatric units are now “fully out of operation — further constraining desperately needed access of many in the area to the right to health,” Hurtado said.
The UN also warned that the violence is spilling beyond Sudan’s borders. A drone strike on the Chadian town of Tine on March 18 killed at least 24 civilians and wounded some 60 others, following an earlier RSF ground offensive in the area.
“We urge all states, particularly those with influence, to do all in their power to end arms transfers that are fueling the conflict and being used in manifest disregard of the obligation to protect civilians in conflict,” Hurtado said, calling for renewed diplomatic efforts toward an urgent ceasefire.
Since fighting erupted in April 2023, Sudan’s war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, creating the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises, according to humanitarian agencies.
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