UN humanitarian chief in Sudan says drone strikes are cutting power, water and fuel

3 November 2026

Denise Brown, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, has said drone strikes on civilian infrastructure are cutting electricity, water and fuel supplies and blocking relief work. A hospital just outside Khartoum lost power after strikes, and twenty-five patients needing dialysis had their treatment stopped; World Health Organization staff were in the hospital at the time. Fuel queues now stretch for kilometres and hundreds of aid trucks are stranded. Brown said World Food Programme convoys have been hit seven times this year and twenty times over the past two years, and that the agency is cutting both the number of people served and the size of rations because of funding shortfalls. She described the strikes as an apparent violation of international humanitarian law and said she does not know where the drones come from. Severe acute malnutrition is above the emergency threshold in many areas, going by UNICEF studies, and poor rainfall has worsened food insecurity in parts of Darfur and Kordofan. Brown also pointed to hard-to-reach areas such as Dilling in South Kordofan and parts of Blue Nile.