Wednesday, November 11, 2026

📍 From the Field The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its update that drone attacks continue to target homes, markets, hospitals and displacement shelters, and that at least 1,120 civilians were killed by these strikes during the first six months of 2026, including more than 300 civilians killed in the first three weeks of October alone in Kordofan, Darfur, Blue Nile, Khartoum and other states. OCHA added that long power outages in White Nile and Sennar states affected homes and basic services, while the United Nations Resident Coordinator Denise Brown warned on November 5 that targeting power stations and fuel facilities disrupts basic services and relief operations.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder, after returning from a field visit to Sudan, said he met in displacement camps children whose limbs had been amputated because of the war, including the teenager Bouri, who lost both his arms in an explosion and lives in a tent, spending his morning learning online and his afternoon collecting grass for animals with the help of his friends. Elder said, according to UN News and Radio Dabanga, that a drone attack on September 20 destroyed the UNICEF warehouse in the city of El Obeid in North Kordofan, including more than 292,000 school books and educational materials that had been intended for children, and that shelling of power stations stops water pumps and puts vaccine and medicine cold chains at risk.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Sudan, Waddah al-Taher, quoted the Commissioner of Geissan in the Blue Nile region as saying that between 20,000 and 25,000 displaced people are stranded in five different locations in the region and face extremely complex humanitarian conditions amid difficulty reaching them because of the rugged roads, while the Commissioner of Kurmuk, Abdel Ati al-Feki, said the victims of the Banishko attack were on their way to displacement camps in the city of Damazin and that the authorities were seeking to transfer the wounded to the city's hospitals.

1️⃣ UNICEF: Two-thirds of child victims in Sudan in 2026 fell to drone strikes The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced that 410 children were killed or injured in Sudan between January and September 2026, and that about 270 of them, that is two-thirds of the victims, were injured as a result of drone attacks. The organisation's spokesman James Elder said in Geneva on November 10 that in the last week of October not a day passed without a drone strike on a power generation station, with about 15 strikes during the month. The organisation expected that about 825,000 children under the age of five would suffer from severe acute malnutrition during 2026. (Sources: UN News — UNICEF, Radio Dabanga, AFP via Independent Arabia) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — The transformation of drones into the leading factor in injuring children changes the nature of the danger from the battlefronts to civilian infrastructure itself, from electricity and water to the school and the hospital.

2️⃣ South Sudan at a crossroads before the December 22 elections and warnings of the collapse of the fragile peace The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Anita Kiki Gbeho, warned in a briefing to the Security Council on November 10 that the country is at a "critical turning point" 42 days before the first elections scheduled as a sovereign state on December 22, with continuing concerns about security, logistics and the tight time available, and with essential provisions of the revitalised peace agreement remaining unimplemented. She said that about 10 million people need humanitarian assistance and that access restrictions had increased by 38% over a year. The African Union High Representative for South Sudan, Jakaya Kikwete, called on the United Nations to help ensure the elections pass peacefully, while the International Crisis Group warned that rushed elections could deal a "final blow" to the 2018 agreement. (Sources: UNMISS via ReliefWeb, Associated Press, International Crisis Group) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — The dispute is no longer over the date of the vote alone, but over whether the transitional process will remain anchored to the peace agreement after polling day or unravel with it.

3️⃣ The Armed Forces announce the downing of two drones in West Kordofan and East Darfur The General Command of the Armed Forces announced, in a press circular in the name of the official spokesman carried by the Sudan News Agency (SUNA) today, that its air defences had shot down two hostile FH-95 drones in the states of West Kordofan and East Darfur. The Command explained that the first was shot down at dawn today south of the Ayal Bakhit area in West Kordofan, and the second this morning south-east of the city of El Daein in East Darfur, in operation number 29 within the series of downings of hostile drones, according to the circular. (Sources: Sudan News Agency (SUNA) — General Command of the Armed Forces circular) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — The repetition of announcements of drone downings in two distant regions in a single day reflects the geographic widening of the drone war, the same war the United Nations warns about for its effects on civilians and energy.

— Editorial Team