Sudanese army shoots down RSF drones over Khartoum as three-and-a-half-year war remains an international blind spot

The Sudanese army said Thursday, September 10, that its air defenses had shot down all drones launched by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over Omdurman, north of the capital, Khartoum. An Agence France-Presse correspondent in Khartoum first heard anti-aircraft fire in the early hours of the morning and then recorded five explosions.

According to The Hindu, citing Agence France-Presse, a Sudanese military source said: “Our air defenses intercepted and shot down all the drones launched by the militia to attack areas north of Omdurman,” adding that “none of the drones reached its target.” Omdurman is home to a large military zone and has long been a strategic prize contested by both sides.

Last month, the RSF attacked Khartoum with drones for two consecutive days; the Sudanese army intercepted those attacks as well.

Since war broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF in April 2023, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered what the United Nations calls the world's largest hunger and displacement crisis. On the diplomatic agendas of major Western countries, in the volume of mainstream media coverage, and in sanctions and humanitarian spending, the attention given to this war remains starkly lower than that given to Ukraine and Gaza. Khartoum has recently shown signs of “a gradual return to normal life”: about 2.3 million displaced people have returned to the capital, reconstruction has begun, and market activity is slowly recovering. The scale of that return also exposes the immense human trauma produced by three and a half years of war.

The actual civilian casualties and property losses in Khartoum and surrounding areas have not been disclosed. The RSF has not commented on the latest drone attack, and information about the fighting currently comes from a single Sudanese military source. Independent verification is still pending.

Repeatedly described by the United Nations as the world's largest humanitarian crisis, Sudan's war continues to occupy a place on diplomatic agendas and in media coverage that is profoundly out of proportion to its scale. The latest contest between drones and air defenses over Khartoum took place on an African front line that lacks anything like a comparable level of international attention or diplomatic engagement.