CAIRO (AP) — Drone strikes killed more than 1,000 civilians in war-torn Sudan in the first five months of 2026, a senior United Nations official said Monday as the unmanned aerial vehicles turn the conflict deadlier for civilians.U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said his office has documented a “sharp increase” in drone attacks as well as rape and sexual violence in the Sudan war, now in its fourth year.He said his office registered the killing of over 1,000 civilians by drone strikes between January and May this year.“In Sudan, the horrific conflict has expanded and escalated, marked by a sharp increase in the use of drone warfare,” Türk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.The war in the northeastern African country broke out on April 15, 2023, when a power struggle between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in Sudan.
The war killed at least 59,000 people over the course of three years, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED. The U.S.-based war-tracking group, however, said the actual toll was almost certainly higher, given reporting difficulties.
