Sudan has formally complained to the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, accusing neighbouring Ethiopia of allowing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to launch drone attacks on Sudanese civilian sites from Ethiopian territory. The move sharply escalates tensions between the two Horn of Africa neighbours as Sudan’s civil war grinds into its fourth year.
The complaints, announced by Sudan’s army-aligned Foreign Ministry over the weekend, describe Ethiopia’s alleged conduct as a hostile act that breaches international law, according to The New Arab and Asharq Al-Awsat.
What Sudan is alleging
Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, headed by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, says about 70 attacks this year involved more than 180 one-way attack drones launched from Ethiopia. The council says these strikes have killed or wounded nearly 500 civilians.
According to Khartoum, the drones struck residential areas, hospitals, power stations and fuel facilities. The Foreign Ministry called the attacks “blatant aggression”, The New Arab reported.
Asharq Al-Awsat reported that around 15 power stations were targeted between October 20 and November 1, causing widespread blackouts in Khartoum, Al-Jazira, White Nile and Gedaref states. These figures come from Sudanese authorities and rights groups and could not be independently verified.
Ethiopia denies the accusations
Ethiopia has denied backing the RSF, The New Arab reported. Addis Ababa has instead accused Sudan’s army of supporting rebels linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a claim Khartoum rejects.
The exchange of accusations has created what Asharq Al-Awsat described as unprecedented tension between the two countries, raising fears that Sudan’s conflict could spill across its borders. Relations between the neighbours were already strained by a long-running dispute over the al-Fashaga border farmland and disagreements over Ethiopia’s giant Nile dam.
A war increasingly fought from the air
Sudan’s army and the RSF have been fighting since April 2023. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and pushed parts of the country into famine, according to the UN. The country is now effectively divided between areas held by the army and those controlled by the RSF, which seized El Fasher, the last army stronghold in Darfur, a year ago.
As direct ground fighting has slowed in some areas, both sides have turned to drones that can strike targets hundreds of kilometres away without risking their own fighters. The UN says drone attacks across Sudan killed more than 1,100 people in the first half of this year alone, with more than 300 deaths recorded in the past month.
Repeated strikes on electricity infrastructure have left millions without reliable power, disrupting water supplies, hospitals and businesses in army-held cities, including the capital Khartoum, which the army retook from the RSF last year.
What happens next
It is not yet clear whether the UN Security Council or the AU Peace and Security Council will hold a dedicated meeting on Sudan’s complaints. Some analysts quoted by allAfrica have questioned what the complaint can achieve, given divisions among world powers over the Sudan war.
Diplomats will be watching for any response from Addis Ababa at the UN and for signs that the dispute is spreading beyond words. For millions of Sudanese living through blackouts and air strikes, and for the large Sudanese refugee population across Africa and the Gulf, any wider regional confrontation would deepen one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Sources: The New Arab, Asharq Al-Awsat, allAfrica, Al Jazeera.
