RSF Drone Campaign Against Power Stations Weaponizes Sudan's Grid, Collapsing Civilian Life

Systematic drone strikes have cut Sudan's electricity generation by 75%. The RSF is using energy infrastructure as a weapon of war, and civilians with chronic illnesses, displacement camps, and small businesses are bearing the full cost.

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces have conducted at least 18 attacks on electricity infrastructure across nine states between October 20 and November 2, 2026, collapsing the country's power generation from 4,400 megawatts pre-war to approximately 1,100MW. The campaign represents a deliberate strategic escalation — political analyst Mohammed al-Husseini directly links the timing to SAF gains in the Kordofan region, framing the attacks as economic retaliation against military losses on the ground.

The human cost is immediate and measurable. In Port Sudan's al-Taqaddum neighbourhood, blackouts last between six hours and a full day with no predictable schedule. Kamal Mohammed, a 42-year-old diabetic earning 150,000 Sudanese pounds ($14.40) monthly, cannot reliably refrigerate his insulin. Ice costs 7,000 pounds ($0.67) per day — nearly 15% of his income just to keep medication viable. Solar panel systems that could provide independence cost 4-6 million pounds ($385-$577), roughly 27-40 times his monthly salary. The grid collapse has produced a brutal cost escalation even for those still connected. Kamal's monthly electricity bill has risen from 3,000 pounds ($0.28) before the war to as high as 100,000 pounds ($9.61) — a 33-fold increase. This is extraction by infrastructure destruction: when the grid is unreliable, the per-unit cost of whatever power trickles through skyrockets, and customers pay more for less. Displacement camps face the starkest conditions. Al-Karama 3 camp in al-Damazin houses 3,000 residents with zero electricity supply, relying on three floodlights for the entire site — one near communal toilets, two beside water tanks. Azhar Abdullah's 13-year-old daughter, who has a thyroid disorder requiring careful management, must perform physically strenuous tasks throughout the day because basic services that would reduce her burden simply do not exist. Small businesses are being systematically destroyed. Osama Omar, a 22-year-old engineering student running a laundry in Port Sudan's Deim Madina neighbourhood, has watched outages stretch past 24 hours, forcing him to turn away customers while unfinished orders pile up. The war, the unstable exchange rate, rising operating costs, and now power cuts — each layer strips away more economic viability from Sudan's remaining productive capacity. The UN's Denise Brown has stated plainly that there is no defence for repeatedly hitting power stations, noting that dialysis patients cannot receive treatment, women give birth in unlit hospitals, and surgical operations cannot proceed. More than 14 million civilians have been displaced since April 2023, including 4.5 million to neighbouring countries, with an estimated 150,000 killed. The energy infrastructure campaign is not a side effect of war — it is the war, conducted against the civilian population's capacity to survive. The strategic logic is grimly coherent: destroy the grid, collapse healthcare and agriculture, deepen humanitarian pressure, and force political concessions through civilian suffering. Every megawatt lost translates directly into insulin that spoils, dialysis that stops, water that doesn't pump, and crops that don't grow. The RSF is converting military setbacks in Kordofan into civilian catastrophe nationwide.