Drone Strikes Push Sudan’s Power Grid Toward Collapse
Drone strikes knocked out electricity substations in Al-Dabbah and Abu Hamad on Sunday, pushing Sudan’s shattered power system toward collapse. The attack did not merely darken two northern towns. It cut water pumps, hospitals, bakeries and farms from the infrastructure that keeps people alive in a country already broken by three and a half years of war.
Residents in Al-Dabbah told the Associated Press that an explosion shook their homes shortly after 4 a.m. on November 1. The substation burned. Its guard, Mohammed al-Nour, was killed. In Abu Hamad, another drone destroyed the substation and knocked it out of service, according to the local security committee. No casualties were reported there.
Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group tracking the campaign, says 15 substations have been targeted since early October. Sudanese authorities and the group blame the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for Sunday’s strikes. The RSF did not respond to requests for comment, and independent investigators have not publicly established responsibility for every attack.
One dam carries a country
The latest attacks came after drones disabled the 500-megawatt Um Dabakir thermal plant and damaged Shendi’s main substation. Um Dabakir lost four transformers and three generating units. White Nile and North Kordofan states fell off the grid, and regional officials warned that repairs could take months.
Merowe Dam is now Sudan’s last major electricity source, providing more than 70 percent of national supply. Even before this week’s attacks, generation had fallen from roughly 4,400 megawatts before the war to about 1,100. A single complex is carrying a national network while drones keep destroying the stations that distribute its power.
The state electricity operator warned Reuters on October 26 that earlier strikes across Sennar, Al Qadarif, White Nile and Gezira threatened the stability of the national grid. Sunday’s attacks widened that crisis northward. Anadolu reporters separately confirmed explosions and a fire at Abu Hamad, while Sudan Tribune reported outages across the city and surrounding villages.
Electricity infrastructure can look like a technical target on a military map. In civilian life, it is a chain of dependence. A transformer powers the pump that moves drinking water, the freezer that preserves vaccines, the machine that performs dialysis and the irrigation system that keeps a harvest alive.
War enters the hospital and the bread line
The Sudan Doctors Network warns that prolonged outages endanger hospitals, dialysis centers, intensive-care units and blood banks. They also threaten the cold chain for medicines and vaccines. In Al-Dabbah, residents said markets, hospitals and bakeries shut after the strike. One baker had a generator but no diesel to run it.
Farmers face the same trap at the beginning of the winter growing season. Irrigation pumps need electricity; backup engines need fuel that is no longer available. Destroying the grid therefore attacks the next harvest as well as today’s clinic. The damage compounds itself through hunger, disease and rising prices.
The United Nations said on October 31 that escalating drone attacks were inflicting a “catastrophic toll” and demanded that all parties spare civilians and critical infrastructure. OCHA had already warned that attacks on electricity and water facilities were disrupting essential services for millions and threatening grid stability.
Sudan’s army and the RSF have both expanded drone warfare far beyond conventional front lines. Accountability cannot mean accepting one side’s accusation as proof. It requires independent investigation, publication of recovered evidence and pressure on every foreign state supplying weapons to the belligerents.
The immediate demand is simpler: stop attacking the systems civilians require to survive. Protect repair crews. Guarantee fuel and access for hospitals and water stations. Restore power before the blackout becomes another weapon of mass displacement.
Sudan’s grid has not completely failed. That is precisely why the warning matters now. If Merowe falls or the remaining transmission network fractures, an already catastrophic war will acquire a new front inside every darkened ward, dry tap and unplanted field.
Sources: Associated Press; Reuters; United Nations; OCHA briefing; Anadolu Agency; and Sudan Tribune.
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