Sudan: Drones and Miscalculations
Othman Mirghani
With their consecutive and rapid defeats on the battlefield, the “Rapid Support Forces” have increasingly resorted to the use of drones, focusing on targeting vital infrastructure facilities. The most recent of these attacks occurred mid this week when drones targeted the Merowe Dam power station in northern Sudan, causing damage that led to power outages in several states, including Khartoum. This attack was not the first of its kind on the dam and its facilities, nor was it the only one targeting power stations across Sudan. It seems to be a deliberate strategy to strike this vital sector and try to disrupt people’s lives.
The drones of the “Rapid Support Forces” have not only targeted civilian and vital facilities but also civilians, as happened this week in the city of Al-Dabba, and earlier in El Fasher and the Zamzam IDP camp multiple times, resulting in a large number of innocent civilian casualties. Even hospitals have not been spared from these attacks, such as when a drone belonging to the “Rapid Support Forces” targeted the Saudi Teaching Hospital in El Fasher, killing more than 70 people, including women, children, and medical staff, which sparked widespread condemnation.
It is notable that the “Rapid Support Forces” drone attacks focus more on civilian and service facilities than on military targets, which raises the question of what these forces hope to achieve with this strategy. Targeting infrastructure and civilian facilities is an act that cannot be justified by any military or non-military reasoning. It violates all international laws, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which specify what is permissible and prohibited in wars and emphasize the protection of civilian infrastructure, from power stations to hospitals, schools, markets, and other public service facilities.
The “Rapid Support Forces” resorting to this reckless strategy underscores the weakness of their military position on the ground after the consecutive defeats they have suffered since the army and the forces fighting alongside it launched their major counteroffensive in late September of last year. It also reflects a level of despair and frustration that leads them to commit acts that put them under the scope of violating international humanitarian laws, further isolating them internally as the gap widens between them and the citizens who have suffered greatly from their actions and violations over the past two years of war. Drones alone will not win the war, even if their targets are military, let alone when those targets are civilian in nature.
Through their gamble of focusing on infrastructure, the “Rapid Support Forces” may hope to break the will of the people by exhausting them and pressuring them through the disruption of normal life and the destruction of basic services like electricity, a necessity of modern life. The goal of this pressure is to make citizens feel insecure, that their lives are unstable in areas controlled by the army, hoping that this will provoke their anger and push them to pressure military leaders to return to negotiations to end the war.
Another reason might be that they seek to achieve media gain in front of their fighters, who have become disillusioned with their consecutive defeats and have started to criticize their leaders publicly in widely circulated videos. In this context, the leadership of the “Rapid Support Forces” has also begun adopting the rhetoric of their rank-and-file urging the war to be brought to the north, with a tone of racism targeting specific tribal components.
These tactics will likely cause more harm than good for the “Rapid Support Forces.” In any case, they will not stop the army’s advance into the remaining areas under their control, but they will certainly increase the resentment of the citizens towards them and strengthen their view of them as a rogue militia directly targeting them after destroying their homes, displacing them, looting on a large scale, and systematically targeting the infrastructure and the foundations of life, taking Sudan back decades.
Moreover, the repeated targeting of infrastructure and civilian service facilities puts the leadership of these forces under the threat of international criminal accountability, as these actions fall under the category of war crimes explicitly outlined in international humanitarian law. Not only that, but the legal consequences may extend to any other parties deemed complicit in causing these crimes.
Targeting civilians and infrastructure has never been a successful strategy that ensures military superiority for any party. On the contrary, it backfires on the aggressor and provokes anger and aversion towards them, stripping them of any legitimacy in the eyes of the public. From this perspective, this strategy becomes a political and moral suicide, both domestically and internationally, and could pave the way for legal prosecution in international courts.
The unprecedented destruction that has befallen the country will make it difficult for the people to forget their suffering, and it will be difficult for those responsible to escape accountability, whether soon or later.
