Sudan: 70 drone attacks from Ethiopian soil reported to the UN and the African Union

Sudan has filed a complaint against Ethiopia with the United Nations Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council following a series of drone attacks carried out this year, reports Al Jazeera. The statement from the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was released on the night of Sunday, November 1, 2026.

What the Sudanese report says

Khartoum accuses the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group at war with the army since April 2023, of using Ethiopian territory to launch a "flagrant aggression" against civilian sites and power plants. The attached document, produced by the army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council, lists 70 attacks between February 15 and October 27, 2026, involving 187 one-way kamikaze drones. The reported toll is 484 civilians killed or wounded, 176 Sudanese soldiers killed, and 200 others wounded. "Since February 2026, armed drones have taken off from Ethiopian soil," the report asserts, identifying three departure points: Asosa Airport in western Ethiopia, the Kurmuk-Gizen border area, and the Bahir Dar airbase in the Amhara region.

A particularly deadly month of October

The report notes 28 attacks carried out by 97 drones in the month of October 2026 alone. It specifically cites the October 9 strike against displaced families in Wad el-Mahi, in the Blue Nile region near the Ethiopian border: 30 civilians were reportedly killed, including 26 women and four children, and around 100 were wounded.

Two capitals accusing each other

The Sudanese army regularly accuses Addis Ababa of supporting the RSF. Ethiopia, for its part, blames the Sudanese army for supporting rebels linked to the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which Khartoum denies. Al Jazeera reports no Ethiopian reaction to the complaint, and the accusations contained in the Sudanese report have not been independently verified.

The UN expresses its dismay

The spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General indicated on October 31, 2026, that António Guterres was "dismayed" by the impact of drone strikes in Sudan and strongly condemned their escalation, viewing them as violations of international humanitarian law. A few days earlier, a strike on a market in Darfur controlled by the RSF had killed more than one hundred people, according to a human rights organization cited by Al Jazeera.

What comes next

No meetings or votes have been announced at this stage, either in New York or Addis Ababa. However, the referral to the African Union Peace and Security Council places the matter before an African body: two member states of the organization, neighbors linked by the Nile, are now clashing there over the issue of responsibility for a conflict that has lasted for more than three years.