Monthly Forecast: Sudan – Drone Warfare Escalation, Eid Violence, Kordofan and Darfur Atrocities, Famine Progression, and Sanctions Dynamics

Strategic Security Assessment

Monthly Forecast June 2026

Executive Summary

Sudan heads into June 2026 in the most dangerous phase of its conflict since the civil war began in April 2023. The war has now entered its fourth year in a configuration characterised by drone-dominated warfare, territorial fragmentation, attrition between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, and a humanitarian system approaching comprehensive collapse across Kordofan and Darfur.

The most immediate and significant update to this assessment comes from the 1 June 2026 statement by UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, who condemned multiple attacks on civilians during the Eid Al Adha holiday. In West Kordofan, a drone strike in the Kadam area killed at least eight civilians and wounded many others. In Central Darfur, a drone strike on the town of Um Dukhun on Saturday killed at least ten people including three children. In North Kordofan, clashes in Bara killed at least a dozen civilians, forced displacement, and worsened an already acute humanitarian situation. Humanitarian operations serving approximately 21,000 people in Central Darfur had to be suspended following armed clashes. Intercommunal violence in Central and South Darfur is producing additional casualties and forcing families across the border into Chad.

These attacks occurred over a Muslim religious holiday, indicating that neither the SAF nor the RSF treats civilian religious observance as grounds for operational restraint. The deliberate targeting or indiscriminate striking of civilian populations during Eid compounds the humanitarian catastrophe and signals that the conflict has entered a phase where civilian life holds diminishing operational weight for either belligerent.

Between January and April 2026, drone strikes killed at least 880 civilians — more than 80 per cent of all recorded conflict-related civilian deaths in that period, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. A 31 May strike on two civilian vehicles on the Abu Zabad-Al Fula road in West Kordofan killed ten people including eight children. Markets have been struck at least 28 times in the four-month period. Healthcare facilities have been hit at least twelve times. The Khartoum International Airport attack on 4 May disrupted all flights and triggered fears of renewed large-scale hostilities in the capital.

1. Expected Security Council Focus

The Security Council will receive its regular 120-day briefing on Sudan in June. The 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee briefing is also expected, though appointment of a new committee chair was pending as of the source text due to disagreements over subsidiary body allocation among Council members.

Council priorities will concentrate on escalating drone warfare and its civilian toll, the Kordofan and Darfur military operations, external arms flows sustaining war capacity, famine risk and humanitarian access, attacks on healthcare infrastructure, accountability through the 1591 sanctions regime, and regional spillover including the Sudan-Ethiopia-UAE dynamic.

The Council's fundamental challenge is that Sudan's war is no longer primarily a domestic power struggle between two Sudanese military factions. It is a regionalised conflict economy involving cross-border arms transfers, proxy dynamics, drone technology supply chains, displacement corridors, and external sponsors whose interests in the conflict's outcome diverge significantly. This complexity makes Council consensus harder to achieve and narrower in scope even as the human cost continues to accelerate.

2. Drone Warfare: The Strategic Escalation of 2026

Drone warfare has become the defining military feature of Sudan's 2026 conflict and the principal source of civilian casualties. Both the SAF and the RSF have dramatically expanded their use of armed drones across a widening geographic area. What began as concentrated drone activity in Kordofan and Darfur has expanded to Blue Nile, White Nile, and Khartoum.

UN High Commissioner Türk warned in May that the intensification of drone attacks creates conditions for the conflict to enter yet another new, even deadlier phase. He characterised armed drones as now "by far and away the leading cause of civilian deaths" in Sudan. This is not an incremental development; it represents a qualitative transformation of the conflict's lethality profile.

The RSF struck Khartoum International Airport on 4 May, disrupting all flights. Sudan has accused Ethiopia and the UAE of facilitating drone attacks, allegations both countries denied. Ethiopia counter-accused the SAF of supporting the Tigray People's Liberation Front. These mutual accusations reflect how thoroughly Sudan's internal war has become entangled in broader regional strategic competition.

Drones affect the conflict in four ways that compound each other. They extend the geographic reach of strikes beyond active front lines into areas that previously provided civilian refuge. They allow sustained aerial pressure during the rainy season when ground mobility is constrained, removing the seasonal operational pause that historically created windows for displaced populations to return or for humanitarian access to improve. Their supply chains implicate external actors and raise questions about the arms embargo's effectiveness. And their use against markets, hospitals, airports, and fuel depots is systematically destroying the civilian economic and health infrastructure that the population depends upon for survival.

3. Kordofan: Principal Military Theatre and Escalating Violence

Kordofan remains the primary operational battlefield. Major escalations have been documented around El Obeid, Dilling, Kadugli, Babanusa, Barah, and surrounding logistics corridors. The 1 June Eid period attacks in West Kordofan and North Kordofan — drone strikes, ground clashes in Bara, and the killing of at least twenty civilians across the two governorates during a single holiday weekend — illustrate the intensity of operations in this theatre.

An earlier 31 May strike on the Abu Zabad-Al Fula road killed ten people including eight children aboard civilian vehicles. The Sudan Doctors Network documented RSF forces killing 27 civilians in villages in the Al-Murrah area west of Barah, which they stated had no military presence. These incidents are not isolated; they reflect a sustained pattern of civilian targeting or indiscriminate operations in populated areas across North and West Kordofan.

Control over Kordofan determines control over the logistics corridors connecting central Sudan, Darfur, and South Sudan border dynamics. It affects the ability of both parties to move forces between theatres, supply frontline positions, and maintain pressure across the wider conflict geography. Any major breakthrough in this theatre — around El Obeid, Kadugli, Babanusa, or Barah — could shift the war's overall balance and open new displacement routes at a moment when famine conditions are already threatening.

4. Darfur: Mass Atrocity, Displacement, and Accountability Pressure

Darfur remains central to the war's civilian protection and accountability dimensions. The RSF maintains control of major areas of western Sudan. Survivor testimonies from the RSF's assault on Al-Fashir in late October 2025 describe an 18-month siege followed by systematic violence: starvation, drone strikes, torture, executions, looting, and mass atrocities against civilians attempting to flee. These accounts — collected by Reuters in late May 2026 — document conditions that multiple UN experts and rights organisations have characterised as genocide-level violence against specific ethnic communities.

Intercommunal violence across Central and South Darfur in the Eid period, combined with drone strikes on Um Dukhun killing three children, forced additional waves of displacement toward Chad. This border crossing further strains Chadian reception capacity, already under pressure from earlier displacement waves, and creates additional humanitarian and security challenges for N'Djamena.

The Darfur file will continue to drive international accountability pressure in the Security Council, particularly around the 1591 sanctions regime. The RSF's documented conduct in Darfur — especially around Al-Fashir and displacement corridors — will remain the most politically compelling evidence base for expanded sanctions designations.

5. Humanitarian Collapse: Famine Risk and Access Denial

The 14 May IPC analysis estimated that approximately 19.5 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity through May 2026, including around 135,000 in catastrophic conditions. Fourteen areas across Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan are at risk of famine.

These numbers are rendered more alarming by the systematic destruction of the food system. Drone strikes on markets — 28 confirmed strikes on markets generating civilian casualties between January and April — are destroying the commercial exchange infrastructure that allows populations to access food even in conflict conditions. Strikes on supply routes and fuel depots compound the problem by obstructing humanitarian logistics. The UN's 1 June statement noted that humanitarian operations serving 21,000 people in Central Darfur had to be suspended following clashes. This pattern of access denial through armed violence against civilian and humanitarian infrastructure is not collateral damage — it is a systematic destruction of civilian survival mechanisms.

UN High Commissioner Türk noted that Kordofan now faces increased famine risk from delays or shortages of fertiliser linked to the Gulf crisis, adding an agricultural dimension to a food emergency already driven by conflict destruction.

6. Diplomacy: Active Engagement, Limited Breakthrough Conditions

Personal Envoy Pekka Haavisto conducted Gulf engagement from 4 to 11 May, visiting Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh with emphasis on immediate de-escalation, arms flow restraint, confidence-building, and coordination around a Sudanese-led political process. SAF leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan engaged multiple Gulf leaders — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, and Bahrain's King Hamad — in discussions reportedly touching on humanitarian corridors, localised truces, maritime corridors, and rapprochement between Sudan and the UAE.

The diplomatic landscape is active but lacks the structural conditions for a breakthrough. Neither the SAF nor the RSF believes its battlefield position warrants accepting a ceasefire that would freeze territorial distributions unfavourable to its current or projected position. External sponsors have not demonstrated willingness to impose genuine constraints on arms supply or financial support. The mediation architecture remains fragmented across UN, AU, IGAD, Gulf, and bilateral tracks without a coordinating mechanism that can generate convergent pressure on both parties simultaneously.

A realistic near-term objective is not a national ceasefire but targeted achievements: protected humanitarian corridors in famine-risk zones, localised truces around specific healthcare or civilian infrastructure, and concrete pressure on drone supply chains through expanded sanctions designations.

7. Sanctions: Growing Focus, Persistent Divisions

Sanctions designations under the 1591 regime have accelerated. The 1591 Sanctions Committee designated four RSF commanders including RSF deputy commander Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo on 24 February. On 28 April, four additional individuals including three Colombian nationals facilitating RSF military operations were designated — one of the most explicit acknowledgements that Sudan's war is being sustained through international facilitation networks.

France, the UK, and the US have reportedly proposed adding six individuals and two entities to the sanctions list in June. The DRC precedent and the growing evidence base on drone supply chains, financial intermediaries, and foreign fighter recruiters suggest the next designation wave may focus on these enabling networks rather than only Sudanese commanders. However, Council divisions between members prioritising accountability and members emphasising sovereignty limit the scope of consensus action.

8. RSF Internal Strain and SAF Coalition Dynamics

Recent defections of senior RSF commanders to the SAF suggest internal pressure from resource constraints and shifting territorial dynamics in areas of declining economic value. The RSF has responded with command restructuring to prevent further defections and tighten internal cohesion. The SAF has simultaneously begun integrating allied armed groups into state security structures.

Both processes carry systemic risks: RSF restructuring may generate internal rivalry or purges; SAF militia integration may formalise undisciplined armed networks without adequate command accountability. Both developments make civilian protection harder and post-conflict DDR more complex.

9. Threat Assessment — June 2026

Drone attacks against military and civilian targets are assessed at very high probability of continuation and potential escalation, with the rainy season likely to intensify their use as ground mobility decreases. Kordofan fighting at high probability of continued major escalation. Darfur civilian protection crisis at very high risk with ongoing atrocity risk. Humanitarian access constraints at very high severity with famine risk in 14 identified areas. Healthcare system degradation at high probability of continuation. Regional spillover and proxy dynamics at high risk given Sudan-Ethiopia-UAE accusations. Council divisions limiting robust action remain a persistent structural constraint.

Strategic Conclusion

Sudan's June 2026 security outlook is the most dangerous of any country in this forecast series. The war has entered a phase of systematic civilian destruction through drone warfare, famine instrumentalization, and the targeting of healthcare and economic infrastructure. Neither belligerent shows any indication of accepting a ceasefire that would freeze present territorial positions. External sponsors continue to supply arms and financial support. Mediation tracks are active but structurally unable to generate convergent pressure.

The deliberate targeting of civilians during Eid Al Adha, killing dozens across Kordofan and Darfur during a Muslim religious holiday, is not an operational aberration. It is a data point confirming that the war's conduct has moved beyond any restraint framework that either party is willing to self-impose.

ASA Final Assessment: Sudan is likely to see continued drone escalation, intensified Kordofan operations, ongoing atrocities in Darfur, worsening famine-risk conditions, and deepened humanitarian access obstruction over the next thirty to sixty days. A national ceasefire is not achievable without structural changes — genuine external pressure on arms flows and financial support, coordinated mediation across all active tracks, and credible accountability mechanisms for commanders ordering civilian strikes. None of these conditions currently exist at the required level. The trajectory, absent a fundamental shift in international engagement, is toward further deterioration.

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