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Drones Knock Out Power Stations in Northern Sudan as Cabinet Orders ‘Maximum Alert’

Defence Mena cover: drone strikes on Sudan's power grid — Defence Mena cover image.

Drones struck the power stations at Al-Dabbah in Northern State and Abu Hamad in River Nile State on Sunday 1 November, cutting electricity to both towns and extending a week-long campaign against Sudan’s grid. Sudan’s government and the Sudan Doctors Network blame the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Sudan Tribune counts about 14 power stations hit over the past two weeks, across states from Red Sea and Northern State to Gedaref, Sennar and South Kordofan.

The same day, Sudan’s cabinet ordered a “maximum state of alert” and threatened the harshest penalties for anyone found to have given the RSF coordinates of strategic or civilian sites. The army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council published a report accusing Ethiopia of letting drones take off from its territory, which Addis Ababa denies.

The latest strikes

Abu Hamad, River Nile State: government sources told Sudan Tribune that a drone hit the Abu Hamad transformer station and an old, out-of-service thermal plant, blacking out the town and nearby villages. Witnesses told Anadolu that loud explosions were heard and fire spread through parts of the facility.
Al-Dabbah, Northern State: local sources said a drone bombed the transformer station, cutting power to the town and its rural area. Strikes were also reported on a military headquarters and fuel stations at Al-Multaqa, about 25 km southeast, where a woman was killed, Sudan Tribune reported.
Hayya, Red Sea State: Anadolu reported a strike on Saturday 31 October on the Hayya power station, which is still under construction.

Counts vary by outlet. Anadolu put the total at 12 power stations in six states since Monday 26 October. Sudan Tribune gives about 14 in a wider set of states over two weeks. AP reported that the outages have disrupted water supplies and forced residents onto expensive alternatives, and the Sudan Doctors Network warned that hospitals, dialysis centres and blood banks are at risk. The RSF has not commented on the individual strikes in the reports seen by DefenceMENA.

Cabinet: maximum alert and a hunt for informants

After a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kamil Idris, Graham Abdelqadir, undersecretary of the culture and information ministry, said the government wanted the alert raised “at both official and popular levels”. The cabinet directed security agencies to track “all conspiracies” against the country and ordered stronger protection for power stations and their workers at federal and state level. It also called for domestic and international media campaigns to “criminalise” the attacks, which it described as crimes against humanity carried out with drones launched from inside Ethiopia.

Separately, Energy Minister Al-Mutasim Ibrahim told the cabinet that nine fuel tankers were on their way to Sudan and that the state oil company was importing three more, with about 120,000 tonnes in total, according to the Sudanese outlet Al-Zawiya. Fuel depots are also on the target list. Diesel generators are the fallback for hospitals and water pumps when the grid goes down.

Sudan’s new figures on drones from Ethiopia

The Transitional Sovereignty Council’s report, carried by AFP on 1 November, says it documented 70 attacks between 15 February and 27 October involving 187 one-way attack drones and 82 munitions dropped from drones. It says these attacks killed or wounded 484 civilians and killed 176 soldiers, with 200 more wounded. It names launch sites at Asosa airport in western Ethiopia, the Kurmuk–Gizen border area, and Bahir Dar air base in Amhara. According to the report, October alone saw 28 attacks and 97 of the one-way drones, including the 26–27 October raids that knocked six power stations out of service.

These figures are framed differently from those Sudanese officials gave on 28 October, when they spoke of 162 drone attacks from Ethiopia, which DefenceMENA reported here. The council’s report appears to count attack events and individual drones separately. Khartoum says it will file complaints with the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council and reserves the right to self-defence. None of the claims has been independently verified. Ethiopia rejects them and accuses the Sudanese army of backing rebels linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which Khartoum denies.

Why the grid is a target

Since losing ground in central Sudan, the RSF has relied increasingly on long-range one-way attack drones to hit infrastructure deep in army-held territory, including Port Sudan’s fuel depots in 2025. The army in turn uses its own drones against RSF-held cities such as Nyala. Transformer stations are easy to find, hard to defend against small drones, and slow to repair. Large transformers can take months to replace. The UN says more than 1,100 people were killed in drone attacks across Sudan in the first half of 2026.

The first wave of this campaign, which blacked out the southeast on 26 October, is covered in our earlier report. For the forces on both sides, see Sudan’s military strength in 2026.

What is still unclear

Which drone types were used in the November strikes and where they were launched from.
How many of the damaged stations can be repaired quickly.
Whether the cabinet’s alert will bring new air-defence deployments around power infrastructure.

Sources

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