Since January 2024, Iranian cargo aeroplanes have been noticed regularly at the airport in Port Sudan, the command for Sudan’s junta ruled by Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Soon after those aircraft began coming, the SAF projected attacks against the enemy Rapid Support Forces (RSF) operating Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drones.

In the meantime, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, through the mercenary organization Africa Corps, have provided the RSF with weapons, fuel and other aids including quadcopter-style drones equipped to carry and drop 120 mm mortar shells. The SAF has also employed this technique.

Drones have become a critical component of the war between the SAF and the RSF, in which two contending generals are fighting over custody of the country’s natural resources. Many of those unmanned aerial vehicles are arriving from Iran, Russia or the UAE as those countries throw their backing behind Sudan’s opposing forces in longings to secure their benefits when the war ends.

While some drones are produced in Sudan, the inflow of drones from abroad breaks a United Nations arms prohibition on Sudan. Much of the support from Russia and the UAE has come via neighbouring Chad and Libya. A United Nations report states the UAE supplied the RSF with aid hidden as humanitarian deliveries to displaced people harbouring in Chad. Africa Corps, formerly understood as the Wagner Group has used its contacts in Syria and eastern Libya to smuggle surface-to-air missiles and other spears to the RSF. Meanwhile, Russia’s government is officially sponsoring the SAF as President Vladimir Putin aims a Russian foothold along Sudan’s Red Sea coast.

The UAE, which pursues its own Red Sea outpost in Sudan, has provided the same quadcopter drones to allies in conflict zones such as Ethiopia and Yemen, according to Brian Castner, a weapons specialist at Amnesty International. The RSF has utilised its drones to attack SAF positions but also has utilised them to undertake assaults on civilian institutions such as a hospital in Omdurman in 2023. The SAF also utilised drones early in the battle against civilian sites, including a market frequented by RSF fighters where at least 40 people perished during an SAF drone strike.

The appearance of Iranian drones allowed the SAF to go on the offensive against the RSF recapturing the state broadcaster and covering parts of Omdurman, Sudan’s biggest city, this year. Since the battle broke out in April 2023, more than 15,000 people have passed and millions more are sent heading for their lives. Experts acknowledge those numbers are dramatically undercounted because so much of the land remains inaccessible to inspection teams.

Medical experts express that children and pregnant women are starving from easily treatable conditions in North Darfur because raids on hospitals have shuttered the region’s medical infrastructure. Given the effect they have had on the competition, drones flowing into Sudan are likely to support the conflict despite international calls for a mediated resolution, according to experts. In May, the SAF declined to return to peace discussions in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.