Coordinated drone strikes launched by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have disabled five power stations across three eastern states, cutting electricity to millions and severely escalating the nation’s protracted civil war.
According to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the early-morning strikes struck two electrical facilities each in Al-Jazira and Gedaref states, alongside a single installation in White Nile state. Reuters World reported that the simultaneous assault resulted in sweeping power outages across expansive swathes of the three regions, all of which remain under the strategic control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
The tactical offensive marks a pronounced expansion in the paramilitary group’s deployment of uncrewed aerial vehicles to target critical civilian infrastructure far beyond the primary battlegrounds of Khartoum and Darfur.
Coordinated assault on eastern energy hubs
The strikes have dealt a punishing blow to the region’s interconnected electrical network. Local authorities reported that engineers were racing to isolate damaged substations and prevent total grid collapse, though supply lines into urban centres and surrounding agricultural corridors were promptly severed.
Gedaref and White Nile, situated in eastern and central Sudan, have served as pivotal logistics corridors and administrative refuges for the regular military led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Disrupting their energy supplies threatens both military communications and the fragile baseline of daily commerce that has sustained these safe-haven states throughout months of fierce fighting.
Infrastructure weaponised in widening civil war
The targeting of public utilities signals an ominous shift in operational tactics as the war approaches its second full year. Military observers note that both combatants—the RSF, commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and the national army—are increasingly weaponising basic civic utilities to undermine administrative governance and demoralise populations residing in rival territories.
Water distribution facilities, telecommunications towers, and hospital generators across Sudan remain heavily reliant on the state energy grid. With municipal fuel reserves largely depleted and import routes constrained by security blockades, alternative diesel generation remains largely unobtainable for ordinary residents and relief agencies operating on shoestring budgets.
Humanitarian catastrophe deepens for displaced millions
The resulting blackouts carry acute implications for a healthcare and refugee architecture already on the brink of total collapse. Gedaref alone hosts hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons who fled earlier campaigns in Khartoum and the breadbasket region of Al-Jazira.
Aid organisations have warned that prolonged disruptions to electricity will halt cold-chain storage for vital vaccines, cripple water purification plants, and foster the rapid spread of waterborne illnesses, including cholera. With temperatures routinely soaring and humanitarian supply corridors constricted, the paralysis of municipal services threatens to convert relative sanctuaries into unliveable disaster zones.
International observers continue to urge external powers to cease the proliferation of military-grade drones to both warring factions, warning that the systematic destruction of core infrastructure will leave Sudan permanently fractured and ungovernable.
