Key Takeaways:
- The column backs UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s UNGA warning that drones killed more than 1,000 civilians in Sudan in the first five months of 2026, and cites an August Security Council briefing on SAF and RSF strikes on markets, schools, fuel, and water.
- It highlights a Washington Post report, relayed by Euronews, of a $120 million Baykar contract for drones, stations, and warheads to Sudan’s military, and says Ankara should disclose approvals and end-use checks.
- The ask is a nationwide embargo on drones and related tech, verified supply-chain probes, and a Turkish suspension pending safeguards—applied to other suppliers too, not as proof every strike used Turkish kit.
Ed Miliband was right to highlight the growing use of drones in Sudan in his speech during the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Week. His warning deserves more than diplomatic agreement. If governments accept that these weapons are making an already catastrophic war more lethal for civilians, they must confront those supplying them. That scrutiny must include Turkey.
The UK’s Foreign Secretary described a conflict increasingly fought from the air, extending its deadly reach beyond active frontlines, and cited reports that drone strikes killed more than 1,000 civilians in the first five months of 2026. This is not simply a change in battlefield tactics. It is a warning that distance from the fighting offers civilians less protection.
The UN Security Council’s August briefing made the danger explicit: drones launched by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had repeatedly struck markets, schools, fuel stations and water infrastructure. These are the places and systems on which everyday survival depends. Destroying them threatens far more people than those caught in the immediate blast. This was no doubt on the minds of the protesters who gathered at The Broken Chair outside the United Nations in Geneva earlier this month.
A damaged water system can leave whole communities exposed to disease. An attack on a market can sever access to food and livelihoods. When humanitarian routes become targets, even assistance intended to keep people alive becomes harder to deliver. The civilian consequences must therefore be measured not only in deaths recorded after each strike, but in the conditions that make survival possible.
Nor should the language of technological sophistication reassure anyone. A weapon’s capacity for precision is not evidence that its operator will distinguish civilians from combatants. Better surveillance and longer range cannot substitute for restraint, accountability or a willingness to negotiate. More capable weapons can instead encourage commanders to believe that another offensive will deliver victory.
Miliband identified precisely this danger, warning that drones were feeding the illusion of a military solution and stressing that their capabilities are procured, financed and sustained through networks outside Sudan. The implication is uncomfortable but unavoidable: civilian protection cannot stop at Sudan’s borders. It must reach the suppliers.
Turkey warrants particular attention. A Washington Post investigation, drawing on documents and communications, reported covert deliveries of Turkish drones and missiles to Sudan’s military, with Baykar personnel overseeing the transaction. Euronews’ account of that investigation described a $120 million contract covering drones, ground control stations and hundreds of warheads, alongside an offer of technical support inside Sudan.
This raises questions beyond the sale of individual aircraft. What export approvals were granted? What monitoring accompanied the deliveries? What restrictions governed their use, and what happened when evidence of civilian harm emerged? Ankara should answer those questions publicly. Commercial confidentiality is not an adequate response to concerns about weapons supplied into a war marked by attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Supplying a force that claims to be “the army” should not be treated as a moral exemption. The relevant test is not whether the recipient holds a diplomatic seat, but whether continued support risks enabling further civilian suffering. A policy that condemns atrocities while preserving the means to commit them is not a credible policy of civilian protection by any government.
The case for scrutiny does not require claiming that every drone strike involves Turkish equipment, or that a manufacturer directs every operation. Nor does criticism of Turkey excuse other belligerents or their suppliers. The UN’s warning concerns all belligerents. Equal concern for civilians requires consistent scrutiny of their respective supply networks, not selective outrage.
The response should be practical. Britain and its partners should press for a nationwide arms embargo explicitly covering drones and related technology, an approach advocated at the August Security Council meeting. They should seek independently verified investigations of supply chains and end use, support evidence preservation, and pursue targeted sanctions where the evidence and applicable law justify them.
Turkey should suspend drone transfers and associated military support pending credible safeguards against their contribution to abuses. Other suppliers should face the same demand. Diplomatic pressure must make restraint more attractive than continued escalation.
Miliband’s warning should become a test of policy, not another statement filed after UN week. Protecting Sudan’s civilians means challenging the commercial and political relationships that keep this war supplied. Turkey cannot be exempt from that scrutiny.
