UN's top official in Sudan: drone strikes on power and fuel are stopping dialysis and stranding hundreds of aid trucks
A first-hand interview on what the strikes mean for hospitals, tuk-tuk drivers and food convoys.
What happened: In a Nov. 3 interview with UN News, Denise Brown, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said a weeks-long pattern of drone strikes appears to target civilian infrastructure, especially energy and fuel. She said a hospital outside Khartoum lost power and stopped dialysis for 25 patients, hundreds of aid trucks are stuck for lack of fuel, and markets and displacement sites have been hit. WFP convoys have been hit seven times this year, and WFP is cutting both the number of people it serves and its rations.
Why it matters: Rainfall shortfalls are adding hunger to a war that has already displaced millions, and Brown says people would die without aid that now can't move.
How much agreement is there? Broad agreement that attacking civilian infrastructure is a violation of international humanitarian law; Brown says she does not know where the strikes originate.
Could someone help? Brown's ask is funding: donations to established humanitarian agencies working in Sudan, and pressure on governments to fund the response.
Across the spectrum 2
Democrat
In a July 1, 2026 joint statement, Sen. Chris Coons and Republican Chairman Jim Risch said they were "especially concerned" about "drone strikes and attacks on civilian infrastructure" by the RSF around El Obeid, said "there is no military solution to the war in Sudan," and urged the RSF and SAF to negotiate peace and "the flow of humanitarian aid" and foreign backers to stop arming them.
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations ↗Republican
After a February 2026 drone attack on a WFP convoy in North Kordofan, Massad Boulos wrote on X: "The United States condemns the recent drone attack on a World Food Programme convoy in North Kordofan transporting food to famine-stricken people which killed one and wounded many others," Al Jazeera reported.
Al Jazeera ↗-
Sudanese civil war (2023–present)
After exploring ‘This is not about politics. This is about people’: UN warns of impact of deadly drone strikes in Sudan | UN News, the war behind the crisis is laid out in Sudanese civil war (2023–present).
Background on the war that began in April 2023 between Sudan's army and the rival Rapid Support Forces.
Wikipedia · Swim · 30 min
0