Ed Damazin Drone Strikes: What Is Known About the Fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile

Drone strikes on Ed Damazin, the capital of Sudan’s Blue Nile state, killed at least four civilians at dawn on Wednesday 7 October 2026 and damaged the homes of two regional ministers, according to Reuters and local sources. Local officials and civil groups blame the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). The RSF has not commented. The attack followed a strike on the state governor’s residence on 3 October and ground fighting north-east of the city, close to the Roseires Dam and the Ethiopian border. Here is what is confirmed, what each side claims, and why the Blue Nile front matters.

Photo: The Roseires Dam on the Blue Nile near Ed Damazin, February 2025 (file photo). Credit: Mustafa Barrin, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

What happened in Ed Damazin on 7 October

Reuters, citing local sources, said “suspected” RSF drone strikes killed at least four civilians in residential areas of the al-Hijra district. The strikes also damaged the residences of the Blue Nile region’s finance and information ministers. Reuters described the attack as an escalation in long-range strikes on government-held cities.

Radio Dabanga named the four dead, all women. Two were from the same family and two were neighbours, according to Ali Hajo, secretary-general of the Blue Nile Civil Society Initiative. A mosque was damaged. Ed Damazin Technical College said two drones hit its campus, damaging lecture halls, offices and laboratories. Finance Minister Molana Abbas Kara wrote on Facebook that the RSF had fired four missiles at his home from a “strategic drone” and called it a failed assassination attempt. Dabanga said no one was hurt at his house.

No official has said what type of drone was used, and no wreckage has been publicly identified. Kara’s term “strategic drone” usually refers to larger, long-range aircraft that launch guided munitions. Smaller one-way attack drones are a different class. DefenceMENA could not verify which kind struck the city. Our review of drones in Sudan’s war sets out what UN investigators have documented about each side’s fleets.

The earlier strike on the governor’s house

On Saturday 3 October, Blue Nile Governor Ahmed al-Omda said on Facebook that RSF suicide drones had targeted his home and several civilian sites, and posted photos of the damage. He said air defences had repelled the attack but gave no casualty figures, Radio Dabanga and Reuters reported. Reuters said earlier strikes had also hit fuel depots and municipal infrastructure in the city. Ed Damazin shelters thousands of people displaced from fighting elsewhere in the region, according to the Al Jazira Human Rights Observatory.

Ground fighting near the Roseires Dam

The drone strikes coincide with an RSF–SPLM-N push in Roseires locality, north-east of Ed Damazin. On 3 October the RSF-aligned Tasees Alliance said it had taken “full control” of several areas there, including Menze, Jabal El Nimr and Basharkat. It also claimed to have seized more than 20 combat vehicles and captured a large number of soldiers. Radio Dabanga reported the statement, and the alliance gave no figure for prisoners.

The army disputes that account. Its Fourth Infantry Division said troops and allied forces dealt a “knockout blow” to the attackers in the Minza and Bashkarkad areas, inflicting heavy losses and forcing them to retreat, according to Anadolu Agency. It gave no casualty figures. Neither side’s version can be independently verified. The fighting is close to the Kadalo area, which lies on the Ethiopian border and along the Roseires reservoir.

The Roseires Dam, just upstream of Ed Damazin, is one of Sudan’s main hydropower plants and controls the flow of the Blue Nile into central Sudan’s irrigated farmland. That makes the area strategically important beyond the city itself. Elsewhere in Sudan, power stations, fuel depots and dams have caused the widest disruption when drones hit them.

How the Blue Nile front developed

Blue Nile became an active front again in January 2026, when the RSF and SPLM-N fighters began attacking army positions. Ahram Online identifies the SPLM-N fighters in Blue Nile as a faction led by Joseph Tuka. The alliance seized the border towns of Kurmuk and Geissan earlier in the year. The army said in July that it had recaptured several positions and later retook both towns, Ahram Online reported. In September, Sudan’s army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan visited Ed Damazin to inspect front-line troops, The EastAfrican reported.

Sudan’s army-led government accuses Ethiopia of letting drones cross into Blue Nile from its territory, and Addis Ababa denies it. In September the commissioner of Kurmuk alleged that camps across the border were used to train RSF fighters and stage drone operations. Ethiopia’s foreign ministry called such accusations “baseless” and said its forces near the border were routinely stationed there. In May the Sudanese army said its own Akıncı had destroyed another Akıncı that, it said, had entered from Ethiopia near Ed Damazin. Ethiopia rejected Sudan’s drone accusations then as well. The dispute sits alongside wider tension in the Horn, covered in our reports on the El Alamein declaration and on Ethiopia’s response.

Why it matters

The Ed Damazin strikes show the same pattern seen in Port Sudan, Merowe and El Obeid. Drones let a force with no conventional air arm reach cities far behind the front line and hit leadership homes, fuel and utilities. The UN said in August that drone attacks had killed about 1,100 civilians in Sudan between January and June 2026, according to Anadolu Agency. For the army, protecting a state capital, a major dam and a long border at the same time stretches its limited air defences. Air-to-air engagements between drones, discussed in our piece on Akıncı and CH-95 shoot-down claims, are one response, but they cannot cover every approach route.

What is confirmed and what is not

• Confirmed by multiple local and international sources: drone strikes on Ed Damazin on 7 October killed at least four civilians and damaged ministers’ homes, a mosque and a technical college; the governor’s residence was targeted on 3 October.
• Attributed, not independently verified: that the RSF carried out the strikes (local officials, civil groups and Reuters’ sources say so; the RSF has not commented); that a “strategic drone” fired four missiles at the finance minister’s home.
• Disputed: the outcome of fighting in Roseires locality. The Tasees Alliance claims territorial gains and captured vehicles; the army says it repelled the attack.
• Alleged and denied: Sudanese claims that drones are entering Blue Nile from Ethiopia.
• Not known: the drone types, launch sites and total casualties across the week’s strikes.

Sources

• Reuters (via Sudan Tribune): Suspected RSF drone strikes kill four civilians in Sudan’s Ed Damazin (7 October 2026)
• Radio Dabanga: Four women killed in drone strikes on Ed Damazin, Blue Nile (7 October 2026)
• Radio Dabanga: Fighting on Ethiopian border, drone attacks on Ed Damazin (4 October 2026)
• Anadolu Agency: Sudan’s army says it inflicted heavy losses on RSF, allies in Blue Nile state (3 October 2026)
• Ahram Online: Sudanese army repels RSF, allied rebel group attack near Ethiopian border (October 2026)
• The EastAfrican: Ethiopia, Sudan junta bicker again over RSF support claims (8 September 2026)

Evidence note: Access to Blue Nile is limited and both sides’ battlefield claims are unverified. This page will be updated at the same URL as official statements or independent evidence emerge.