(CNN) — “You cannot hide from a drone strike,” says Elsadig. For the 27-year-old, that is the terrifying reality of life in Sudan’s besieged city of El-Obeid, where even the simplest routines carry the threat of sudden death.
For much of Sudan’s civil war, which began more than three years ago, civilians feared the fighting on the ground. In El-Obeid, a strategic trade and aid hub that is home to more than half a million people, many now fear what comes from the sky.
In late June, Elsadig was sitting at a water truck station when a drone strike hit the area, severing his left leg.
Nearby, Ahmado, a 42-year-old sewage truck driver, was at work when the same attack struck a group of water trucks. His 9-year-old son, who had come to meet him after school, was killed, along with two of his colleagues.
“My day had started like any other day. There were drones flying over our heads, but I never imagined that my child or I would become a target,” Ahmado told CNN.
His family searched for hours before finding the boy’s body inside the burned-out truck after the fire had died down.
CNN is identifying Elsadig and Ahmado by their first names because they fear for their safety.
“When we hear that there is a drone in the air, we try to take cover under a concrete building,” Elsadig told CNN. “But it comes suddenly — we do not know when or where (it will strike).”
The attack on El-Obeid, a key battleground in the fight between Sudan’s two rival military forces, underscores how drones are reshaping a war that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 14 million and triggered what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The war erupted in April 2023 after former allies Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fell out in a power struggle. Having seized power together after overthrowing the civilian-led government in a 2021 coup, they became rivals in a battle for control of Sudan.
Now, as foreign-made drones pour into Sudan, the United Nations warns the conflict is “on the cusp of entering yet another new, even deadlier phase.” During the first four months of 2026 alone, drone strikes killed at least 880 civilians and accounted for more than 80% of civilian deaths recorded by the UN.
The war’s new weapon
What began as a ground war has evolved into a battle increasingly fought from the air.
Backed by foreign suppliers, both the SAF and RSF have expanded their drone fleets, from modified commercial drones to advanced military systems.
According to Africa Defense Forum (ADF), a military and security magazine published by the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), both sides have shifted “their tactics to airborne weapons and away from ground forces, which have largely reached a stalemate.”
ADF reported that drones supplied by Turkey — including Bayraktar TB2s, which can fly for long periods, carry explosives and are relatively low-cost — helped the SAF push the RSF out of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, last year.
Turkey has said it supports Sudan’s sovereignty and peace efforts, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosting SAF chief al-Burhan in Ankara last month.
The RSF has also expanded its drone operations, using Chinese-made FH-95 drones capable of striking targets at long range. Some of the systems have been linked to suppliers in the United Arab Emirates. Military Africa, a defense publication, also reported that Turkish-made drones have appeared on the RSF side, making it harder “to identify who is responsible for individual strikes on civilians.”
The UAE has faced repeated allegations of arming the RSF, with researchers and rights groups tracing weapons recovered in Darfur, a region largely controlled by the paramilitary group, back to the Gulf nation. The UAE rejects the claims, though a UN Security Council panel deemed them “credible” in 2024.
A battlefield without front lines
Drones have redrawn Sudan’s battlefield, offering a glimpse of the future of proxy warfare, according to Nate Allen, an associate professor of security studies at the Washington, DC-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Allen, who has been tracking the conflict, told CNN that drones are now used to monitor enemy movements, support ground operations, strike supply lines and attack infrastructure. More recently, he said, they have increasingly been used against civilian infrastructure and populated areas.
The technology has also changed the rhythm of the war. In the past, fighting often slowed during Sudan’s rainy season, when flooded roads made it difficult to move troops, heavy weapons and supplies. Drones, however, can keep operating even when ground forces are slowed by the weather.
“Drones don’t depend on roads to navigate, get sick, or get bogged down in the mud,” Allen said. “Both sides are continuing to use drones, especially those with longer range and endurance, to strike one another during the rainy season, when the movement of troops and vehicles might otherwise be limited.”
But as drones have expanded the battlefield, they have also brought the war deeper into civilian life. Distance from the front lines is no longer a guarantee of safety. Homes, markets and critical infrastructure are increasingly within range.
Living under the drones
In El-Obeid and across Sudan, residents say the sound of drones overhead has become part of daily life.
The escalation has been particularly severe in El-Obeid, which has endured what the UN describes as “siege-like conditions” for the past 18 months despite remaining under SAF control.
As the capital of North Kordofan, El-Obeid sits on major routes linking Khartoum with Darfur, the wider Kordofan region and Sudan’s south. That position has made it a strategic target for both the SAF and the RSF. The city is also sheltering at least 100,000 people who fled violence elsewhere in the country.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, said that in June alone his office verified 15 drone strikes in and around the city that killed at least 45 civilians, warning that the actual death toll was probably much higher.
Türk said “drones launched by both sides have repeatedly struck markets, schools, fuel stations, water infrastructure and civilian vehicles” across Kordofan, disrupting access to food, clean water, healthcare and other essential services.
The strikes have also made it harder to deliver aid. Earlier this month, a drone struck a truck belonging to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) carrying 50 tons of relief supplies for displaced families — the second such incident involving a UNHCR aid truck this year, according to the agency.
Moses Okello, a senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies’ Horn of Africa program, told CNN the attacks appear designed to cripple the city’s ability to function rather than simply hit military targets.
“Drones from both the RSF and SAF inflict similar damage on the civilian population,” he said. These “appear to be deliberate attacks on dual-purpose (civilian and military) infrastructure, not as collateral (damage) but as a core military tactic.”
Residents say the effects are felt long after each strike ends.
Rehab, 48, whose home was destroyed in a drone strike at a displacement camp in El-Obeid in June, said the past few weeks had been among the hardest since the war began.
“The attacks have become so frequent that we feel as though the war has started all over again,” she told CNN.
“Throughout the day, drones circle overhead, and we constantly hear their sound. People are now afraid to gather anywhere, even to help one another.”
Aid agencies warn that the worsening attacks are trapping civilians in an increasingly desperate situation.
“Families in El-Obeid are losing their children, their limbs and their homes,” Shashwat Saraf, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s country director in Sudan, told CNN. “Nothing is spared, and those surviving the attacks are going hungry, with nowhere left to go.”
For Elsadig, who said he survived three previous drone attacks before the fourth cost him his leg, every trip outside now carries the fear that it could be his last.
“When you go out, you do not know whether you will come back,” he said. “You may find yourself sitting somewhere, and suddenly, there is a missile beside you. You may live, or you may die. You do not know.”
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