As Sudan’s brutal civil conflict enters its fourth year of sustained bloodshed, a hostile drone launched by the country’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the dominant paramilitary faction opposing the ruling national military, was intercepted and destroyed by air defenses before it could strike Khartoum International Airport on Monday, senior airport officials confirmed. This attempted strike marks the latest escalation in sporadic violence that has shaken the capital in recent weeks, after months of relative calm following the Sudanese army’s recapture of Khartoum last year.
The foiled attack comes just three days after an RSF drone strike on a civilian passenger convoy traveling on the outskirts of Khartoum left at least five people dead, a massacre that underscored the persistent threat to civilian life across the war-torn nation. According to anonymous airport officials, who were not cleared to speak to international media outlets, the Monday drone approached the airport from the southern corridor before it was shot down by military air defenses. The interception caused no infrastructure damage and no reported injuries or fatalities, a statement from the Sudanese military government later confirmed. A senior military source also told the Associated Press that the drone was launched from territory in a neighboring country, though no additional details about the nation or cross-border involvement were provided.
Flights at Khartoum International Airport were temporarily suspended immediately after the interception, but aviation authorities announced that full operations would resume following standard security inspections. The site’s gradual reopening over the past year had been hailed as a critical milestone in efforts to restore a semblance of normalcy to the capital, which has been the epicenter of the conflict since open fighting broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF in April 2023. Prior to Monday’s attempted strike, the capital had seen very little large-scale RSF attacks after the army retook full control of Khartoum, though small, intermittent strikes have become more common in recent weeks.
As of the latest updates from independent monitors, the four-year conflict has already killed at least 59,000 people across Sudan, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a leading independent organization that tracks global conflict casualties. International aid organizations warn that the true death toll is almost certainly far higher, as restricted access to active combat zones across the large country makes full casualty counting impossible. The United Nations estimates that the war has displaced more than 12 million Sudanese people both internally and across international borders, and has pushed multiple regions of the country into full-scale famine, creating what aid groups have widely called an “abandoned global crisis.”