Sudan drone strikes on power, water and fuel infrastructure have stranded hundreds of aid trucks and stopped dialysis treatment for 25 people at a hospital outside Khartoum, the UN's top humanitarian official in the country said. Denise Brown, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, told UN News there has been an intense pattern of drone strikes over the past couple of weeks, and that the strikes appear to be targeted attacks on the civilian systems the aid operation and the population depend on.
What did the UN's coordinator in Sudan say?
The strikes appear to target civilian infrastructure, which is protected under international humanitarian law. "What we're seeing is what appear to be targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure, which, of course, is protected under international humanitarian law," Brown said. "Sources of energy and fuel appear to be systematically targeted and destroyed. So already there's an apparent violation here." She said markets and displacement sites have also been hit, and described the attacks as widespread and "increasingly worrying for us and scarring for the population."
Which electricity facilities were hit this week?
Three electricity substations were reported hit on Monday alone, in the latest attacks of a concentrated campaign against the power network. Facilities in New Halfa and Aroma in eastern Kassala state were hit early on Monday, while the al-Ghazali substation in Sudan's Northern State was also targeted, according to local media reported by Al Jazeera. The attacks, which caused widespread power outages across parts of the country, brought the number of strikes reported to target Sudan's electricity network to 18 over the past week, Al Jazeera reported. Videos circulating on social media appeared to show fires at the facilities, with civil defence teams trying to extinguish them; Al Jazeera said it was not able to immediately verify the footage and reports, and the substation details are published here on that basis.
How have hospitals, water and fuel supplies been hit?
A hospital outside Khartoum lost power during a World Health Organization visit, and its dialysis patients' treatment stopped outright. Brown said WHO colleagues were at the hospital when the electricity went out because of the drone strikes: "The hospital has no generator, no solar panels. So, the 25 people who need dialysis had their treatment stopped, point blank." There was nothing staff could do without electricity, she said; the outages also affect women giving birth, operations cannot take place, and the same goes for water. In Khartoum, fuel queues stretch for kilometres, and tuk-tuk drivers — who earn a daily wage carrying people to work and to market — are having to wait several days in a row for fuel, which means they are not earning an income, Brown said.
Why are aid convoys stopping?
The UN's food and shelter supply chain runs on fuel that the strikes are destroying. "We have hundreds of trucks stuck because of a lack of fuel," Brown said. "If we don't have fuel, we can't move. We can't provide food to people who need it, or support children suffering from severe acute malnutrition." The World Food Programme, which moves thousands of trucks across Sudan carrying food for people when local markets do not have it, has had seven hits on its convoys just this year, and 20 over the past two years, resulting in loss of life and loss of food intended for the people who needed it most, she said. WFP is also cutting both the number of people it serves in Sudan and its rations. The aid operation is trying to reach people in places including Dilling in South Kordofan, and parts of Blue Nile, Darfur and West Kordofan.
What else is compounding the crisis?
Drought, displacement and a decimated health system sit underneath the strike campaign. Severe rainfall deficits mean farmers in parts of Darfur and Kordofan are on the move looking for food, Brown said. Millions of people remain displaced, basic social services have been disrupted, and the health system has been decimated. Severe acute malnutrition is very high, exceeding the emergency threshold in many parts of the country, according to UNICEF studies Brown cited. She also said reports of conflict-related sexual violence surrounding the atrocities in El-Fasher in October 2025 are "sky-high," numbering thousands and thousands of incidents.
Who is sending the drones?
That is not established, and the UN's coordinator said so directly. "With the escalation of the drone strikes, and I don't know where those drone strikes are originating from, we need help passing the message to whoever needs to hear it, that this must stop," Brown said. "There is no defence for repeatedly hitting power stations and fuel stations." Separately, Sudan's military government has claimed that Ethiopia is aiding the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — which it has been fighting since April 2023 — in carrying out the attacks, Al Jazeera reported; on Sunday the government said it had filed complaints against Ethiopia with the UN Security Council and the African Union's Peace and Security Council, accusing Addis Ababa of involvement in the campaign against civilian infrastructure and power stations. That claim is published here as the government's claim; no independent attribution of the infrastructure strikes was available in the reporting opened.
What is the UN asking for?
Intervention to end the fighting, and funding. Brown urged the international community to intervene and to fund the response, saying the UN and its partners have demonstrated they can deliver but need donors. At a camp in Abu Shandi in Blue Nile a couple of weeks ago, she said, people told her, "We need food," and she had to answer, "Please be patient." "How can I tell people to be patient and wait for food?" she said. "This is not about politics. This is about people. It's about putting the people of Sudan front and centre of what is going on and making sure that at least we're taking care of their basic needs."
This report is drawn from UN News' November 3, 2026 interview with Denise Brown, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, opened and read in full on news.un.org, and from Al Jazeera's November 2, 2026 report of the campaign against Sudan's power system, opened and read in full via Europe Says. The Monday substation details rest on local media as reported by Al Jazeera, which stated it could not immediately verify the footage and reports; attribution of the infrastructure strikes is not established — the UN coordinator said she does not know their origin, and Khartoum's claim of Ethiopian involvement is published as a claim, per the two-source rule.
