RSF drone strikes: Deadly capabilities as they advance on El Fasher

22 September 2025

As the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces inch closer to seizing El Fasher and the surrounding areas of North Darfur State, so too does their reliance on deadly drone strikes. On Friday, a suspected RSF drone strike around 4:30 am hit the Mashi al-Safiya Mosque, killing an estimated 75 people during their dawn prayers, local sources told Ayin. The mosque, now in rubble, is based between Darja Aula and the Abu Shouk Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, just north of El Fasher’s airport. According to a statement from members of the El Fasher Resistance Committee, many bodies remained unburied around the rubble because there were not enough shrouds available for burial. 

The committee accuses the army and allied forces of abandoning civilians while the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continue to target them in their bid to control the last remaining area of Darfur under army control. “They are not fighting a military front; they are targeting civilians – children, women, and the elderly – in an effort to extinguish the city’s spirit and crush its will.”

Nyala 

This latest drone strike follows a recent pattern of sophisticated drone strikes by the RSF, monitored by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL). According to Yale’s satellite research between 1 and 6 May 2025, the RSF have 13 drones and 16 launch platforms positioned north of Nyala airport, South Darfur State. The drone models are likely the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 suicide drone or possibly the Chinese-made Sunflower-200 kamikaze drone, Yale reported. Both models maintain an operational range of up to 2,500 kilometres, putting every city in Sudan within striking distance of Nyala. 

“Any location in Sudan is now at risk of an RSF drone strike,” says Yale’s executive director at the Lab, Nathaniel Raymound. “This capability provides RSF a highly mobile and concealable platform that can be moved quickly into position. It can then attack a target hundreds of kilometres away with high explosives and escape detection before the drone even detonates.”

The timing of these discoveries aligns with multiple drone strikes on Port Sudan and Kassala between 3 and 7 May 2025. Satellite images on 6 May captured 11 drones mounted on launchers, ready for deployment. By 9 May, the drones had disappeared, suggesting launches had taken place. The launchers themselves remained in position and, according to Yale, were still visible in imagery through early September.

While it is possible the RSF may have developed their drone weaponry capabilities on their own, Yale’s executive director at the Lab, Nathaniel Raymound, told Ayin it is more likely they are receiving support from a third party. 

Abu Shouk

While Nyala highlights the RSF’s growing technical capabilities, the RSF’s onslaught against El Fasher demonstrates the brutal consequences of their military tactics. Between August 30 and September 10, 2025, Yale documented over 50 bombings in the Abu Shouk IDP camp. Twenty-two of these munition impacts struck Naivasha Market, the camp’s main commercial hub.

The damage is accompanied by an alarming rise in civilian deaths. In Al-Rahma cemetery, Yale identified 190 new burial mounds in just six weeks. A further 50 graves appeared at another cemetery near the former UNAMID compound in Abu Shouk. Local sources have reported daily fatalities from shelling, famine, and lack of medical care.

According to Yale’s satellite research, the RSF’s artillery attacks on the wider El Fasher area have damaged at least three mosques, a water treatment facility, and buildings at the University of El-Fasher. The city’s Emergency Response Rooms, local volunteer initiatives set up to support the war-affected, have alleged that 98% of clean drinking water sources have been destroyed. 

“We were forced to leave Abu Shouk despite facing huge risks before we got to Tawila,” says Amna Ishaq, who fled the camp in May due to the incessant shelling. “If we had remained, we would have certainly died within the camp – if not by the shelling, by the lack of basic needs.” 

No safe havens left

Political analyst Dallia Abdelmoneim said the RSF’s actions follow a consistent and deliberate pattern. “The RSF always, without fail, after a military advance or victory, engages in a wave of massacres and violence. It’s in their handbook and the same is being carried out in El Fasher,” she said. “The racial- and ethnic-driven assaults by the RSF in the Darfur region are very well documented.” From there, Abdelmoneim adds, the RSF displace former residents and control the area under their own system of ethnic hierarchy. 

Yale’s recent research reveals the troubling reality that there are now no safe havens left in the El-Fasher area for civilians targeted by the Rapid Support Forces. If the artillery fire does not reach people, the drones will. Without urgent intervention, Raymond says, the conflict risks deepening into a war fought with foreign-supplied technology, where civilians remain the primary targets.