Hemedti's Paramilitaries Are Snuffing Out Sudan With Drones

On Monday, October 26, drones struck five power plants in Sudan. Two in Al-Jazira State, two in Gedaref State, and one in White Nile State. The result is simple: entire cities plunged into darkness, hospitals running on fumes, families unable to keep water or food from spoiling. In a country where nearly twenty million people face hunger, cutting the electricity is not a technical accident. It is a weapon.

Let us ask what this means in practice. A water pump that stops is a child drinking contaminated water. A refrigerator that shuts off in a clinic is a lost vaccine. An operating theatre plunged into darkness is a mother giving birth by flashlight, or not giving birth at all. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, know this. They strike where the damage is greatest, where civilians have no way to defend themselves.

We must be precise, because precision is our only weapon against propaganda from every side. According to a government official cited by AFP on condition of anonymity, these facilities are located in regions controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which have been at war with the RSF since April 15, 2023. That source belongs to one of the two belligerents, so we do not take it at face value. We cross-check it. What is not in dispute, however, is the pattern: power cuts caused by earlier attacks on power plants and hydroelectric dams have often lasted several days. Days without electricity, for populations that have no reserves left.

Sudan has become a drone war. Both sides strike deep into the country and regularly kill dozens of civilians in airstrikes and shelling. Hospitals have closed in large numbers, especially in conflict zones. At least eight million children are no longer in school. Entire regions have lost access to clean water, medical care, and food. While chancelleries debate communiqués, an entire generation is growing up without schools, without care, without a future.

Let us ask the uncomfortable question: where do these drones come from? For two years, NGO investigations and UN expert reports have documented flows of weapons and military equipment to both sides, often routed through third countries via opaque channels. The United Arab Emirates has been named directly by several investigations for its support of the RSF, which Abu Dhabi denies. The Sudanese army, for its part, has received Turkish drones, notably Bayraktar TB2s, along with political and military backing from Egypt, Iran, and other capitals. Actors of every kind are fighting over Sudan's gold, its land, and its Red Sea ports, while Sudanese people pay the bill in human lives.

This is the new scramble for Africa. It no longer takes the form of the 1884 Berlin Conference. It wears the faces of arms contracts, mining concessions, naval bases, and security pacts signed behind closed doors. The actors have changed, but the logic is the same: they exploit our resources, they arm our divisions, and they let Africans kill each other. When a foreign drone, or a drone financed from abroad, cuts the power to a Sudanese city, we must have the courage to say who holds the geopolitical remote control.

We must also tell the truth about those responsible on the ground. The RSF bears an overwhelming responsibility. The group grew out of the Janjaweed militias that terrorized Darfur two decades ago, and it crossed a new line in the cities it captured, with documented executions, sexual violence, and looting. But the SAF is not innocent. It bombs civilian neighborhoods, obstructs humanitarian access, and has never genuinely reckoned with the massacres in Khartoum in 2019. A general who bombs his own people and a general who cuts the electricity of his fellow citizens differ only in the caliber of their hypocrisy.

We will not accept Sudan being reduced to a battlefield where everyone is right against everyone else. Sudan is a country of 50 million people, with a history, a courageous civil society, and doctors who kept treating patients under bombardment. The resistance committees, the volunteer rescue teams, and the networks of doctors are proof that Sudanese society refuses to give up. It is they, not the generals, who must stand at the center of any solution.

So what must be done? First, civilian infrastructure must be protected. International humanitarian law is clear: power plants that supply civilian populations are not legitimate military targets, and destroying them may constitute a war crime. The UN Security Council must stop merely deploring. It must impose an effective embargo on drones and spare parts to both sides, freeze assets and ban travel for commanders and their financiers, and create an independent mechanism to verify strikes on infrastructure. The African Union, which suspended Sudan after the 2021 coup, must go further: it must demand a verifiable ceasefire, permanent humanitarian corridors, and the resumption of a civilian-led process run by Sudanese, not by foreign sponsors.

This continent has models that prove governance can hold. Botswana built its prosperity on budget transparency, protection of property, and credible institutions. Mauritius made the rule of law its competitive advantage. Senegal, in 2024, showed that peaceful alternation of power and independent institutions could withstand the temptation of authoritarianism. These experiences are not perfect, but they reveal a simple truth: a country where the law applies to everyone, where contracts are public, and where the army remains under civilian control is a country that will not tolerate being plunged into darkness to serve one man's ambitions.

This is exactly what Sudan needs: a state that protects its citizens instead of sacrificing them, an economy no longer dependent on smuggled gold and foreign sponsors, and a political process that subordinates the guns to civilians. Serious investors, whether African or foreign, must understand that no mining or port contract is worth the blood of a Sudanese child. Companies that buy gold or services from armed groups must be held accountable before the courts.

So what exactly should we demand? We demand that the African Union impose personal sanctions on the financiers and war suppliers on both sides, without exception. We demand that the Security Council enforce an embargo on armed drones and open an investigation into the strikes on power plants. We demand that governments selling weapons and drones stop doing so as long as civilians continue to die. We demand that companies stop buying Sudanese gold without knowing who controls it. And we demand that our own leaders stop their silence, because African silence is the first complicity.

As for you, reader, do not let this story slide past your screen like one more dispatch. Share this article. Question your elected officials and your journalists about the drones, the gold, and the arms contracts. Support the Sudanese organizations saving lives on the ground. What is happening in Al-Jazira, Gedaref, and White Nile is happening in our name, on our continent. If we let it continue, we will be as guilty as those who press the button.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL