Sudan has lodged complaints against Ethiopia at the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council over a series of alleged drone attacks that Khartoum says have killed or wounded 484 civilians since February.
Sudan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of using Ethiopian territory to launch attacks on civilian sites and power stations. It described the incidents as “brazen aggression” and said they had caused casualties and disrupted essential services.
The ministry said the alleged attacks placed Ethiopia “before international law”. Ethiopia has not responded in the statement provided.
A report by Sudan’s army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council alleged that 70 assaults involving 187 one-way attack drones took place between February 15 and October 27.
It said 484 civilians had been killed or wounded, while 176 Sudanese soldiers were killed and a further 200 injured. The report alleged that the drones had taken off from Ethiopian territory to strike Sudanese cities and civilians.
It identified alleged launch sites at Asosa Airport in western Ethiopia, the Kurmuk-Gizen border area and Bahir Dar airbase in the north-western Amhara region.
The report said there were 28 attacks involving 97 drones last month. It also alleged that a strike on displaced families in Wad el-Mahi, in Sudan’s Blue Nile region near the Ethiopian border, killed 30 civilians on October 9. The dead were identified as 26 women and four children, with 100 others reportedly wounded.
Sudan’s military has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of supporting the RSF, which it has fought in a civil war since April 2023. Ethiopia has in turn accused Sudan’s military of backing rebels linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a claim Khartoum has denied.
The latest allegations came as the United Nations condemned the growing use of drones in Sudan. A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “appalled” by the impact of the strikes.
The comments followed an attack on a market in RSF-controlled territory in Darfur that killed more than 100 people. The UN said the escalating drone attacks by the parties to the conflict were causing a catastrophic toll among civilians and constituted violations of international humanitarian law.
