Five successive waves of drone attacks attributed to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) struck seven locations across Khartoum, including areas around the Sudanese capital's international airport, killing a man and four children, Radio Dabanga reported. The victims are not being named in this report.

Source: Radio Dabanga (via Africa Center / allAfrica)

Air defences intercepted threats directed at the airport and its facilities, while one drone fell in an unoccupied area east of the runway, with no casualties reported at the site itself, according to the same reporting, which was also carried by AviNews.

Source: AviNews (Avi-Go)

Flights disrupted, officials give conflicting picture

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan said some flights had been disrupted. Passengers said they arrived at the airport to find their flights cancelled without prior notification, while a senior airport official said flights were continuing according to airlines' published schedules and that air traffic had not been affected. Sudan Airways also kept operating, AviNews reported.

The Sudanese Centre for Civil Aviation Research and Studies recommended temporarily suspending commercial operations at the airport, which resumed operations in October last year after a war-related shutdown. The centre said any decision should rest on a formal safety risk assessment and an independent, evidence-based evaluation rather than economic or political considerations, and warned that an accident in an active conflict zone could erode airline confidence, raise insurance premiums and trigger international warnings or restrictions leading to a longer closure.

A war now fought heavily by drones

Sudan's army and the RSF have been at war since April 2023. Drone attacks around the capital are not new: on Monday, the Sudanese army said its air defences had intercepted an RSF drone attack east of Khartoum, near the international airport, according to military sources cited by Anadolu. The RSF had no immediate comment on that earlier claim, and it has not commented in the reports on the latest waves either — the attribution of the attacks to the RSF is reported as such, not independently confirmed.

For travellers and the Sudanese diaspora, the airport is a lifeline link to the outside world. Whether commercial operations are paused will now depend on the safety assessment the aviation centre has called for.