Drone strikes kill over 1,000 civilians in Sudan in the first 5 months of 2026, UN rights chief says

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CAIRO (AP) — Drone strikes killed more than 1,000 civilians in war-torn Sudan in the first five months of 2026, a senior United Nations official said Monday as the unmanned aerial vehicles turn the conflict deadlier for civilians.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said his office has documented a “sharp increase” in drone attacks as well as rape and sexual violence in the Sudan war, now in its fourth year.

He said his office registered the killing of over 1,000 civilians by drone strikes between January and May this year.

“In Sudan, the horrific conflict has expanded and escalated, marked by a sharp increase in the use of drone warfare,” Türk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The war in the northeastern African country broke out on April 15, 2023, when a power struggle between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in Sudan.

The war killed at least 59,000 people over the course of three years, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED. The U.S.-based war-tracking group, however, said the actual toll was almost certainly higher, given reporting difficulties.

At least 2,670 people, including combatants and civilians, were killed in 2025, marking a 600% increase in drone-related deaths and an 81% increase in drone attacks compared to 2024, according to ACLED.

The latest drone strike by the paramilitary group last week killed at least 15 people after hitting a cemetery and a gas station in the central city of el-Obeid, health officials said at the time.

“Sudan’s warring parties have increased their brutality from the skies, using drones supplied by their backers to target civilians and aid workers. This is deplorable and must stop,” U.K. Minister for Africa and International Development Jenny Chapman said in a statement.

She added that the latest update “underscores that this conflict is evolving” and that it was vital for organizations to “document abuses and preserve evidence - essential steps to breaking the cycle of impunity.”

Both warring parties have increasingly launched explosive-laden drones that, in multiple cases, targeted civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, dams, schools, markets, and displacement camps. Drone strikes have become the deadliest threat to civilians in a conflict, overshadowed first by wars in Gaza and then in Iran.

The conflict has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with about 34 million people — almost two out of every three Sudanese — needing assistance, according to the U.N.

The fighting has wrecked urban areas and has been marked by atrocities, including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings, that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.

“Rape and sexual violence are rampant,” Türk said.