A photograph from a dossier Sudan submitted to the UN Security Council on 10 June 2024 shows an unidentified ‘suicide drone'. (Republic of Sudan Permanent Mission to the United Nations)
Members of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) may have unwittingly provided evidence that they are using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) supplied by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) when they released a video showing what they claimed was an Iranian-made UAV they had shot down.
The video first circulated on pro-RSF social media channels on 9 July and was purportedly filmed in Al-Mohandiseen, a district in Omdurman where the RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023.
The first photograph of this type of UAV appears to have been used by the Sudan Tribune newspaper on 12 May to illustrate a story about the SAF shooting down two UAVs that were targeting an airstrip in Gedaref state. This photograph only showed the remnants of an aircraft's delta wing.
More photographs subsequently emerged after other incidents elsewhere in Sudan, showing the same delta wing attached to a boxy fuselage with a small two-cylinder piston engine. These were described as one-way attack UAVs that had been used by the RSF.
A photograph of the delta wing was included in an Arabic-language dossier that Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations (UN) submitted to the UN Security Council on 10 June with the aim of showing how the UAE is fuelling the conflict by supporting the RSF.
The dossier described it as a “large suicide drone” that had the serial numbers erased from all its parts but did not link it in any way to the UAE.
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