Which African Countries Have Military Drones?

Turkish, Chinese, Iranian and now Russian-built drones fly over more of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel than at any point before 2021. This page tracks who actually operates what, with a status label on every claim, and keeps a separate table for reports that have not been independently confirmed.

Photo: Map of the countries operating the TUSAŞ Aksungur, a Turkish heavy armed drone now in service with at least one Sub-Saharan African air force. Credit: TruncateVirus99, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

At least ten Sub-Saharan African states now fly armed or combat-configured drones, most of them bought since 2021: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger after French forces withdrew; Chad, Djibouti and Somalia alongside long-running counter-insurgency campaigns; Nigeria, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo for border and internal security missions. The two best-documented suppliers are Türkiye’s Baykar (Bayraktar TB2 and Akıncı) and China’s AVIC/CATIC (Wing Loong II) and CASC (CH-series). Sudan’s civil war has become, by a wide margin, the deadliest drone conflict on the continent, with both the army and the Rapid Support Forces flying foreign-supplied systems whose origin is contested. Reported fleet sizes vary by source, so every row below carries a status label and a source, and figures that could not be corroborated are kept in a separate table rather than folded into the headline count.

Last updated: 7 October 2026.

Confirmed and multi-sourced drone operators

The table below lists countries where at least two independent outlets, an official statement, or primary documentation (serial numbers, parade footage, a government statement) confirm a drone type is in national service. “Operational” means the air force or army has flown the type; it does not mean every reported airframe in a batch has arrived, and it does not endorse any specific strike claim.

Reported, disputed or not independently confirmed

These claims appear in open-source or advocacy reporting but failed this page’s two-source bar, rely on a single aggregator, or are explicitly contested by one of the parties involved. They are kept separate rather than merged into the table above.

Sudan: Africa’s largest active drone war

Sudan’s civil war, now in its fourth year, is the drone conflict with by far the highest documented casualty count on the continent, and the sourcing of both sides’ fleets is contested. This section separates OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION, INDEPENDENT REPORT and OSINT ASSESSMENT, and notes denials. A full system-by-system account is maintained separately: see Sudan War Drones: What the Evidence Shows on SAF and RSF Since 2023.

• Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF): INDEPENDENT REPORT – Reuters and Al Jazeera reporting describes Iranian Mohajer-6 drones reaching SAF-controlled Port Sudan from late 2023, and a September 2026 UN fact-finding mission found that SAF substantially expanded its drone fleet through foreign-supplied systems from late 2023, with strike-site wreckage containing components consistent with Turkish-made Bayraktar Akıncı hardware. Critical Threats has separately reported Turkish-origin drones reaching SAF via Egypt. SAF has not published its own drone inventory.
• Rapid Support Forces (RSF): OSINT ASSESSMENT, DISPUTED – Amnesty International’s May 2025 investigation attributed Chinese-made Wing Loong II munitions used in strikes to the RSF, sourced via the United Arab Emirates; the UN fact-finding mission’s September 2026 findings describe equipment recovered in RSF-held areas as matching systems previously exported to the UAE; Reuters has tracked more than 86 suspected UAE weapons flights into Chad’s Amdjarass airstrip, widely reported as a trans-shipment point toward RSF-held Darfur. The UAE has rejected these allegations as unfounded, and an RSF spokesperson has denied the group possesses “modern drones,” attributing all drone use to the army. DefenceMENA has not independently verified either side’s drone supply chain and presents this as a disputed, multi-source OSINT picture, not a finding of fact.
• Casualty scale (context, not a DefenceMENA estimate): ACLED recorded roughly 2,670 drone-related deaths (combatants and civilians) in Sudan in 2025, a reported 600% year-on-year rise; the UN human rights office separately reported over 1,000 civilians killed by drone strikes between January and May 2026, a different methodology and time window that should not be added to the ACLED figure. Drone Wars UK, an advocacy monitoring group, separately documented over 943 civilian deaths in at least 50 incidents across Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Somalia between November 2021 and November 2024.

Who is supplying Africa’s drones

Two suppliers account for most of the confirmed Sub-Saharan and Sahel fleet: Türkiye’s Baykar, whose Bayraktar TB2 is the single most widely distributed system on the continent, and China’s AVIC/CATIC and CASC, whose Wing Loong and CH-series aircraft are in service from Nigeria to the DR Congo. Iran’s Mohajer-6 and Russia’s Kronshtadt Orion each have one documented African customer, Ethiopia, which is reported as the Orion’s first export customer. A continent-wide trade-press dataset compiled by Military Africa puts total documented drone acquisitions at roughly 1,959 units from 21 supplier countries since open-source tracking began, with China supplying about 587 of those units across some 20 African countries; DefenceMENA has not independently verified this count and presents it as a trade-press estimate, not a SIPRI arms-transfer figure. For the land-system and broader-platform picture behind these same supplier relationships, see Who Supplies Africa’s Weapons and Turkish Defence Companies Active in Africa.

Why drones, and why now

Three forces explain the speed of this build-up. First, cost: a Bayraktar TB2 system has been publicly estimated in the tens of millions of dollars, far below a crewed strike aircraft with comparable persistence, and neither Baykar nor the Chinese manufacturers attach the political conditions that come with Western arms sales. Second, the withdrawal of French forces from Mali (2022), Burkina Faso and Niger (2023) left the Sahel juntas needing an independent strike and surveillance capability on a timetable Western suppliers were not offering. Third, demonstrated combat use elsewhere, Libya from 2019 and Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, gave African militaries a visible proof of concept before they signed their own contracts. None of this amounts to an unqualified success story: the Sahel juntas’ drone fleets did not prevent Mali’s and Burkina Faso’s forces from suffering serious ground losses to insurgent and separatist groups in 2024–26, and rights organisations have documented repeated civilian casualties from strikes by multiple African air forces, which this page records as reported findings, not as a verdict on any manufacturer.

Frequently asked questions

Which African countries operate the Bayraktar TB2?
Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad’s neighbours notwithstanding (Chad itself flies Anka-S and Aksungur, not the TB2), Nigeria, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and, reportedly, Kenya are documented or reported TB2 operators in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel; Morocco and Tunisia also operate the type in North Africa. See the table above for sourcing and status on each.

How many drones does Mali have?
At least 17 Bayraktar TB2s by serial-number tracking, plus Bayraktar Akıncı aircraft under a reported 2024 contract for six, with roughly eight airframes inferred from three delivery batches through mid-2026. Full detail and sourcing: Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Which countries use Chinese combat drones in Africa?
Confirmed or well-reported operators of Chinese Wing Loong or CH-series armed drones in Sub-Saharan Africa include Nigeria (Wing Loong II, CH-3A/CH-4B), Côte d’Ivoire (Wing Loong II), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (CH-4). Ethiopia operates Wing Loong aircraft in an ISR role with armed use disputed.

Does South Africa have military drones?
Publicly, no confirmed armed drone fleet. The South African National Defence Force has previously operated the Seeker II/400 ISR drone, but SANDF has denied routinely operating it, and DefenceMENA found no evidence this run of an armed UAV in South African service.

Does Kenya have military drones?
Kenya is reported to have taken delivery of six Bayraktar TB2 drones in late 2024, based on Military Africa and ADF Magazine reporting; DefenceMENA has not found a second, independent confirmation of this delivery and labels it accordingly.

Which country has the most advanced military drones in Africa?
There is no agreed, objective ranking. Ethiopia has the most diverse confirmed inventory (Turkish, Chinese, Iranian and Russian types), while Mali and Burkina Faso have the largest confirmed Bayraktar Akıncı holdings outside Türkiye’s own forces in the region; “most advanced” depends on the mission and is not a question this page answers with a single winner.

Sources

• Janes, “Burkina Faso receives Akıncı UAVs” (10 April 2024)
• Janes, “Djibouti parades Bayraktar UCAVs” (28 June 2022) and “Ethiopia displays UAVs” (10 May 2023)
• ADF Magazine, “As Drone Warfare Expands in Africa, Turkey Increases Share of the Market” (Feb 2025)
• Military Africa, Africa drone procurement dataset (2026)
• Army Recognition, CH-4 deliveries to DR Congo (2023/2024 reporting)
• Al Jazeera, “The drones being used in Sudan: 1,000 attacks since April 2023” (3 Feb 2026)
• Amnesty International, investigation into Wing Loong II strikes attributed to the Rapid Support Forces (May 2025)
• United Nations fact-finding mission on Sudan, findings reported September 2026
• Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), Sudan drone-death data (2025)
• Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sudan civilian casualty statement (June 2026)
• Drone Wars UK, “Death on Delivery” report (civilian casualties from African drone strikes, Nov 2021–Nov 2024)
• DefenseMirror / Nigerian Army statement, December 2024
• Overt Defense, “Mali Becomes Fourth African Operator of Bayraktar Akıncı” (4 Dec 2024)
• DefenceMENA originals: Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci in Mali and Burkina Faso, Why Did Côte d’Ivoire Buy the Wing Loong II?, Drones in the Ethiopia War, Sudan War Drones: What the Evidence Shows on SAF and RSF Since 2023, Who Supplies Africa’s Weapons, Turkish Defence Companies Active in Africa
• Baykar Bayraktar Akıncı technical specifications: envantermedya.com

Related on DefenceMENA: Strongest Militaries in Africa · African Defence Budgets Ranked · Who Supplies Africa’s Weapons