Sudan drone strikes are increasingly shaping the war’s next phase, and civilians in the Kordofan region are paying the price.
On February 9, 2026, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council that the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) documented about 90 civilian deaths and 142 injuries in drone strikes carried out by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a short period ending February 6. He said the strikes hit markets, health facilities, residential neighborhoods, and even a World Food Programme convoy.
The warning lands as fighting spreads beyond long-contested areas and as drone warfare becomes a more routine feature of the conflict, expanding the threat zone for civilians and humanitarian operations.
What the UN says is happening in Kordofan
Türk’s central claim is not simply that drone strikes are occurring, but that the pace and targets point to a widening pattern of harm.
According to his briefing, OHCHR’s documentation covers a little more than two weeks and includes strikes attributed to both warring sides. Türk highlighted that civilian infrastructure has repeatedly been hit, including health facilities, and he flagged the risk that Kordofan could face atrocities similar to those seen in Darfur.
The Kordofan region matters because it sits across key internal routes and supply lines. As fighting intensifies around cities and road corridors, drones allow armed actors to strike at distance without controlling territory. That can shift battlefield dynamics quickly, but it also raises the likelihood of misidentification, indiscriminate harm, and retaliation cycles.
The El Fasher warning
Türk used El Fasher as the reference point for what “unchecked” escalation can produce. In the same February 9 remarks, he said the events in El Fasher in October 2025 were a “preventable human rights catastrophe,” describing a siege followed by intense violence and mass civilian suffering.
His message was direct: the international community and states with influence should treat Kordofan as the next test case for whether atrocity risks can be reduced in time, rather than documented after the fact.
A separate incident: 24 killed near Rahad, AP reports
While the UN briefing aggregated a broader pattern, Associated Press reporting described a specific strike that shows how quickly civilian flight can turn lethal.
AP reported that a drone strike attributed to the RSF hit a vehicle carrying displaced families near the town of Rahad in North Kordofan, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, according to a doctors’ group. AP also reported a separate attack a day earlier that targeted a World Food Programme aid convoy in the same province, killing one person and destroying food supplies.
The RSF has denied responsibility for some incidents in the broader drone campaign, and attribution in a fast-moving conflict is often contested. Still, the reporting underscores the operational reality: vehicles used by civilians and humanitarian actors are increasingly at risk on roads that once served as escape routes and aid arteries.
Why drone warfare changes the humanitarian picture
Drones don’t just add another weapon. They alter how people move and how aid is delivered.
Aid convoys become higher-risk
If convoys can be struck, humanitarian agencies face a brutal tradeoff: move supplies and accept elevated danger, or slow operations and risk shortages turning into famine conditions.
Even when casualties from a single attack are limited, the second-order effect can be larger: convoys get rerouted, distribution schedules are disrupted, and local populations lose confidence that aid can reach them safely.
Civilian movement becomes more dangerous
Displaced families often rely on informal transport—buses, trucks, private vehicles—using roads that shift from “safe enough” to deadly within days. Drone strikes expand the battlefield vertically and geographically, making it harder for civilians to judge risk or for local mediators to negotiate safe passage.
Accountability gets harder, not easier
Türk’s briefing emphasized that responsibility must be established and that attacks on civilian infrastructure must stop. But drones can complicate accountability when command structures are opaque, when munitions are hard to trace quickly, and when both sides deny responsibility.
That is why OHCHR’s documentation matters: it is an effort to create an evidentiary trail while the conflict is ongoing, not years later.
Consequences beyond Sudan
Sudan’s war is primarily a domestic catastrophe, but escalating drone warfare has spillover implications.
Diplomatic pressure and sanctions risk
When strikes are documented as hitting markets, health facilities, and aid convoys, they increase the likelihood of sharper diplomatic action, including sanctions designations and restrictions tied to arms supply and conflict financing. Even limited measures can reshape how external backers, regional actors, and commercial networks calculate risk.
Red Sea-adjacent security concerns
Kordofan is inland, but the broader conflict environment affects regional stability and humanitarian financing. The more the war escalates and fragments, the harder it becomes for neighbors and partners to manage border pressures, displacement flows, and the political bargaining that often determines access for aid.
Humanitarian financing strain
Large, sustained civilian harm tends to trigger competing funding demands: emergency healthcare, displacement support, food aid, and protection monitoring. In a world of tight donor budgets, that pressure can crowd out other crises or force painful prioritization.
What happens next
Türk’s immediate ask is straightforward: stop attacks on civilian infrastructure, ensure protection of civilians, and push for accountability.
But the practical question is whether any actor—internal or external—can reduce the tempo of violence fast enough to prevent Kordofan from becoming the next epicenter of mass atrocities.
For now, the documented reality is grim: Sudan drone strikes are killing civilians, disrupting aid, and expanding the war’s danger zone in ways that will be difficult to reverse without meaningful restraint and enforceable consequences.