Drone strikes knocked out electricity substations in two northern Sudanese towns on Sunday, extending a campaign against the power network into areas already carrying people and services displaced by war. Independent reports from AP and Sudan Tribune said the facilities in Al-Dabbah and Abu Hamad were forced out of service, cutting electricity to the towns and nearby communities.

Sudanese authorities and local monitoring groups blamed the Rapid Support Forces, but that attribution has not been independently verified. The RSF did not respond to AP, and claims by Sudan’s government about outside suppliers and launch sites remain contested. What is clearer is the physical result: burned or disabled transformers, wider outages and a grid with fewer alternatives if another major plant or transmission point fails.

The attacks matter militarily because electricity is an enabling system for both civilian life and state capacity. Power loss affects communications, water pumping, hospitals, food production and the repair of other infrastructure. It also creates cascading failures that can spread far beyond the immediate blast area, making the grid itself a strategic pressure point in Sudan’s prolonged war.

A widening pattern

The two news organizations agree on the Sunday strikes but differ slightly on the campaign’s scale. AP, citing the Emergency Lawyers monitoring group, reported that 15 substations had been targeted since early October. Sudan Tribune counted 14 power stations over roughly two weeks and said the affected sites stretched across nine states. The difference underscores the difficulty of maintaining a precise national tally during an active conflict, but both accounts describe a geographically broad pattern rather than an isolated incident.

Earlier attacks struck the Um Dabakir thermal plant in White Nile state and Shendi’s main substation, according to AP. Those losses increase reliance on the Merowe Dam and a smaller set of surviving generators. Because the most detailed national capacity estimates came from an unnamed electricity-sector employee, the exact remaining output cannot be independently confirmed. The direction of travel, however, is consistent across local reporting: generation and transmission redundancy are shrinking.

Civilian systems lose their margin

The immediate consequences extend beyond dark homes. AP reported that markets, hospitals and bakeries in Al-Dabbah were disrupted and that shortages limited the use of diesel generators and irrigation pumps. The Sudan Doctors Network warned that outages threaten dialysis, blood storage and the cold chain for medicines and vaccines.

Those risks fit the broader technical picture. The WHO says reliable electricity is required for medical devices, clean water, communications, vaccination, diagnosis and emergency care. The ICRC reported this year that 70% to 80% of health infrastructure in Sudan’s conflict areas was already nonoperational or critically under-resourced. New outages therefore hit a system with little spare capacity.

Attribution requires caution

Local officials and Emergency Lawyers attributed the northern strikes to the RSF, and Sudan Tribune reported the allegation as fact based on government and local sources. Yet publicly available evidence has not established the drones’ launch points or supply chain. Sudan’s Foreign Ministry has accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying drones and Ethiopia of serving as a launch location; the UAE denies arming the RSF. Neither allegation is independently resolved by the available reporting.

That uncertainty does not reduce the need to document damage, but it limits what can responsibly be said about responsibility. The confirmed finding is that drone attacks disabled electricity facilities in army-held areas. Assigning legal responsibility requires verified evidence about the operator, target selection and circumstances of each strike.

International warnings sharpen

The attacks follow a broader rise in drone warfare across Sudan. In an Oct. 31 statement, the U.N. secretary-general condemned escalating drone attacks by the conflict’s parties and specifically cited strikes on civilians and critical infrastructure, including health facilities. The statement called for both sides to protect civilians and agree to a cessation of hostilities.

U.N. political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo had similarly told the Security Council that drone attacks were the leading cause of civilian casualties in Sudan this year. Her remarks urged the parties at minimum to adopt operational limits on drone use. The ICRC’s assessment also places safeguarding electricity, water and health networks among the most urgent civilian-protection priorities.

What recovery would require

The first practical need is safe access for electricity crews to assess transformers, substations and transmission links. Repairs will have limited effect if fuel cannot reach backup generators or if restored sites remain exposed to repeat attack. Hospitals and water systems need priority power, fuel and communications support while national repairs proceed.

Decentralized solar and battery systems could protect essential facilities from some grid failures; WHO identifies them as rapidly deployable options. They are not a substitute for a functioning national network, and AP’s reporting shows that household systems remain unaffordable for many Sudanese families. The larger requirement is restraint by the belligerents. Without it, each repaired node may become another target, and every strike will shift more of the war’s cost onto civilians who depend on the same fragile infrastructure.