Army drones strike RSF in El Fasher amid dire water shortages
September 26, 2025 (EL FASHER) – The Sudanese army launched drone strikes for a second day on Friday against paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) positions in El Fasher in an attempt to halt their advance on the army’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.
The continued fighting has deepened a severe humanitarian crisis in the North Darfur capital, with residents facing acute water shortages and a scarcity of food and medicine under an RSF siege that began in April 2024.
A military source told Sudan Tribune that an army drone “intensively bombed” RSF gatherings near the Abu Shouk camp and the Mellit gate in the northern part of the city. Air force fighters also attacked RSF targets in southern neighbourhoods, the source added.
The strikes come as the RSF has begun using its own drones to destroy underground army fortifications, enabling rapid advances that have tightened the siege on key army bases, including the artillery corps near the city’s airport.
On Thursday, the army’s 6th Infantry Division said it, along with allied forces, had repelled a two-pronged RSF attack, inflicting “heavy losses in lives and equipment” on what it described as the “terrorist militia.”
The air force also destroyed an RSF military supply convoy in the southern Al-Salam neighbourhood on Thursday, hitting a truck loaded with ammunition and two armoured vehicles, a military source said.
Water Crisis Worsens
Residents in army-held western and northern districts reported a peak in the water crisis over the past three days after the RSF captured several water sources and deployed snipers near others.
A North Darfur government official accused the RSF of deliberately destroying more than 15 water sources in the Abu Shouk camp, forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
Citizens told Sudan Tribune that the price for a barrel of water surged to 16,000 Sudanese pounds on Friday, with water being completely unavailable in some displacement centres. They attribute the crisis to the RSF’s control of the “Dagagai” neighbourhood, which contains old wells, and the stationing of snipers near water points in other areas.
The RSF has been accused of a systematic campaign to forcibly displace the population by destroying all of the city’s markets, health facilities, water sources, and places of worship.