Drones are becoming the main cause of casualties in Sudan's civilian population, with at least 880 deaths attributed to them between January and April this year, UN human rights head Volker Türk said on Monday.
"Armed drones have now become by far and away the leading cause of civilian deaths," Türk said in a statement released in Geneva. They accounted for more than 80% of all civilian deaths related to the ongoing civil war, he said.
"This increasing reliance on drones allows hostilities to continue unabated in the approaching rainy season, which in the past has brought about a lull in ground operations," said Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
An intensification of hostilities risked expansion to central and eastern states, with lethal consequences for civilians across enormous areas, he said.
He called for the adoption of robust measures to prevent arms transfers, including increasingly advanced armed drones, to the parties to the war.
"Drone attacks against civilians and civilian objects will only worsen if they are met with utter impunity, with this violence being increasingly normalized as a go-to tactic by both parties," Türk said.
Sudan has been gripped by civil war since April 2023, with fighting between the Sudanese army led by de facto head of state Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The UN has described the conflict as the world's largest humanitarian crisis. More than 11.5 million people have been displaced, and half the population faces hunger. Both sides have been accused of atrocities.
