Port Sudan was never meant to be a frontline. For two years, the coastal city had stood apart from Sudan’s raging civil war — a rare refuge, an administrative hub, and the last functioning gateway to the outside world. That illusion shattered in May.

In a stunning escalation, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a wave of drone strikes on the city earlier this month, hitting its port, fuel depots, and the only international airport.

For Port Sudan’s civilians, the consequences have been immediate and brutal. Power outages have left hospitals scrambling, families without refrigeration or communication, and entire neighbourhoods in darkness. 

Aid workers report rising panic, as basic services collapse and fuel shortages paralyse transportation. These drone strikes are laying siege to civilian life.

The attacks earlier this month killed at least 17 civilians, including nine who suffocated from toxic fumes, triggered widespread panic, displaced more than 550 households, and severely disrupted humanitarian operations.

Meanwhile, humanitarian support must be ramped up. The UN and aid agencies, already stretched, will need emergency plans to keep aid flowing to support 30 million Sudanese in need — mainly in Khartoum, Darfur, Kordofan, Northern states, and Al Gezira, and the hundreds of thousands more displaced to Port Sudan and its surroundings.

For the first time, Sudan’s eastern shore has become a battleground with the RSF deliberately dismantling what keeps the state functioning: energy hubs, transit points, and humanitarian routes.  

Having lost ground in Khartoum and central regions, the RSF is now fighting from a distance. Its new weapon of choice: drones that can strike hundreds of kilometres away, crippling Sudan’s energy systems, supply chains, and humanitarian corridors without a single soldier on the ground. Their strategic calculus is clear: avoid direct confrontation with superior army forces, and instead choke the arteries that keep the state alive.

The RSF’s drone campaign is more than a tactical shift, it’s a strategy of remote disruption aimed at undermining a state it has been unable to occupy. By outsourcing destruction to machines, the RSF avoids costly ground battles while sowing fear, paralysis, and chaos in areas it no longer controls.

Among the sites hit was the Flamingo Naval Base, the country’s main navy installation north of the port, targeted by suicide drones in a brazen attack. Sudan’s only functioning airport was also damaged, grounding flights and disrupting vital aid logistics. Perhaps most devastating was the strike on the city’s power station, which plunged Port Sudan into darkness.

Hospitals scrambled to stay operational on dwindling fuel reserves, while residents in other army-held regions have already resorted to drawing water directly from the Nile or the sea due to pump failures.

These attacks are not merely military manoeuvres, they amount to economic and humanitarian sabotage. 

Port Sudan is a logistical keystone for UN aid convoys and relief distribution. Its disruption risks deepening famine and disease in a country already facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The UN has called the city a “lifeline”, and the RSF is now cutting it.

Environmental and regional fallout

Beyond the immediate human toll, a quieter crisis is unfolding.

Drone strikes on oil storage facilities have sparked fires visible from miles away. The sight of towering infernos at fuel depots and burning oil facilities raises fears of toxic pollution and long-term ecological damage.

In Port Sudan, the sky turning ominously red from oil-fed fires is not only a visual alarm but an environmental one, worsening air quality for residents. That said, petroleum refinery terminals sit on the Red Sea coast, and any large-scale damage could release crude into the sea, endangering marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods. 

The drone offensive on Port Sudan has repercussions far beyond the country and has alarmed regional powers, including neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Both Cairo and Riyadh swiftly condemned the attacks, concerned that chaos on the Red Sea littoral could threaten shipping lanes and spill violence over borders.

The use of advanced drones by a non-state group raises urgent questions about foreign sponsorship. In other words, these strikes internationalise Sudan’s war, prompting fears that outside players may escalate their involvement to protect their interests.

Sudan’s government squarely blames the United Arab Emirates (UAE), accusing it of supplying the RSF with drone technology—a charge Abu Dhabi emphatically denies.

In response, Sudan severed diplomatic ties with the UAE, only partially walking back the move days later; this reflects the practical realities of Sudan’s deep reliance on the UAE as a hub for gold exports, business, financial connections, and remittances for its large diaspora. Still, the accusation fractures international mediation efforts and injects further volatility into the conflict.

The deployment of advanced drone systems also marks a pivotal shift in regional warfare, revealing how non-state militias now have access to technologies once reserved for national militaries.

This development raises pressing concerns about unchecked arms flows and the ease with which sophisticated weaponry crosses borders, often with the help of regional powers pursuing their own agendas. 

The result is a new era of proxy conflict, where external actors can shape civil wars from afar, intensifying violence, undermining state authority, and complicating humanitarian response. These experience underscores the urgent need for international attention to drone proliferation and the destabilising impact of proxy dynamics in modern conflicts.

Burning the economy

The attacks also endanger South Sudan’s economic lifeline. As a landlocked nation, it depends entirely on Sudan’s pipelines and Port Sudan to export oil. Recent drone strikes on a key pumping station and storage site threaten to halt this flow. A shutdown would devastate Juba’s already fragile economy and cut off crucial revenues for Sudan.

Sudan’s oil transit deal with South Sudan—up for renewal in 2026—has underpinned post-secession cooperation. These latest attacks risk unravelling that delicate arrangement and dragging both countries into deeper instability.

What began as a battle for the capital has morphed into a war on the nation’s lifelines – a conflict in which fuel tanks, power stations, and port cranes are now fair game. This escalation carries enormous human costs: by strangling Sudan’s access to energy and aid, it risks plunging the country into an even deeper abyss of suffering and state failure.

The situation calls for urgent action on multiple fronts. International actors must intervene diplomatically to press for a ceasefire and return to talks – a cessation of hostilities is the only way to stop this downward spiral. Regional powers like Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the African Union should intensify pressure on the RSF to halt attacks on civilian infrastructure and agree to humanitarian corridors.

There also needs to be a concerted push to protect critical infrastructure: RSF should be strongly warned by the international community that deliberate attacks on facilities essential for civilian survival, such as power grids, ports, water, and fuel supplies, are war crimes under international law.

Whether that means identifying alternative routes, pre-positioning supplies, or securing temporary ceasefires for aid delivery, immediate action is needed. Donor nations should treat Sudan’s crisis with the urgency it demands, boosting funding to avert famine, as widespread global aid cuts—including a dramatic reduction by the US—have left humanitarian operations critically at severe risk.

The RSF’s drone war is not just laying waste to Sudan’s infrastructure; it is severing the country’s last connections to survival, order, and hope. 

The international community must act urgently: to pressure for a ceasefire, to protect vital civilian infrastructure, and to mobilise humanitarian aid at scale. If not, the world risks normalising a new kind of warfare, one in which lifelines are fair targets, and civilian suffering is no longer a consequence, but a strategy. 

The line must be drawn now, before the drones silence what remains of Sudan’s future.