Drone strikes disable power substations across Sudan's army-held areas
Nov 2026Published 1 Nov 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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What happened
Drone strikes in the days before and including Sunday, 1 November 2026 (the source gives relative days, so exact dates are inferred), hit electricity facilities in army-held areas of Sudan. The government and the rights group Emergency Lawyers blamed the Rapid Support Forces. Drones hit the Um Dabakir thermal power station in White Nile state, the country's largest thermal plant at 500 megawatts, destroying four transformers and damaging three generating units, which shut the station down according to its director.
Early on Friday, a drone carrying four missiles destroyed the transformers at Shendi's main substation; the same attack hit a reserve depot and an army air defence hangar, wounding a soldier. On Sunday, drone strikes knocked out substations at Al-Dabbah in Northern state and Abu Hamad in River Nile state, leaving both towns without power. At Al-Dabbah a station guard was reported killed and the substation was found burned; at Abu Hamad no casualties were reported.
Emergency Lawyers said fifteen substations had been targeted since early October. The outages were reported to have shut markets, hospitals and bakeries, and rights groups warned of risks to dialysis and cold storage.
Contributing factors
Sudan's grid depends on a small number of plants, and the Merowe Dam was reported to supply more than 70% of electricity. Output had already fallen from about 4,400 megawatts before the war to 1,100 megawatts before the latest attacks. Residents said there was no diesel to run generators, and farmers were reported to face risk at the start of the winter growing season because irrigation pumps lack fuel. The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lessons learned
- Concentrating generation in a few large plants leaves a whole grid exposed to a single attack, so operators should plan for redundancy and islanded supply to critical loads.
- Holding spare transformers and mobile substation units close to critical sites allows faster restoration after physical damage.
- Hospitals, water pumping and cold chains need backup fuel stocks and priority restoration plans that do not depend on a single supply route.
- Critical substations in conflict zones need physical protection, surveillance and counter-drone measures.
More lessons on outages, backup supply and restoration, electrical protection and isolation, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-11-01. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
