In Sudan's Kordofan, now the fiercest battleground between the army and rival paramilitaries, 53-year-old trader Hamed Hamidan always keeps one eye on the sky, looking out for the drones that punctuate daily life.

Sudanese displaced Abdullah Idris, who says he was imprisoned and tortured in Rapid Support Forces' (RSF) prisons before fleeing El-Fasher, sits at a makeshift shelter in the town of Tawila, in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region on March 2, 2026. (Photo: AFP)

"They never leave the city," Hamidan told AFP by text message from South Kordofan's Dilling, where the army in January broke a long-running siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

"They have caused constant fear," he said.

Three years into war between Sudan's army and the RSF, near-daily drone strikes now kill dozens at a time, striking markets, homes and hospitals without warning.

Both sides have increasingly relied on advanced drone warfare in their battle for territory, drawing frequent condemnation from the United Nations and pointing to the steady flow of supplies from foreign backers.

The UN said this week drone strikes killed more than 500 civilians between January and mid-March, illustrating "the devastating impact of high-tech and relatively cheap weapons in populated areas."

- 'We can tell them apart' -

In El-Obeid, capital of North Kordofan, where the RSF has attempted to reimpose a siege for months, civilians say they can now distinguish the different types of drones overhead.

"Before Ramadan, the drones never left the sky," said Othman Abdel Karim, a 46-year-old civil servant, referring to the Muslim holy month which ended last week.

"We can now tell them apart -- the suicide drones, the strategic ones," he told AFP.

Both sides deploy two kinds of drones.

The first are cheap and small, some hardly bigger than a camera, and sometimes assembled from commercially available parts fighters mount a bomb on.

They are known as "kamikaze" or suicide drones, because they explode on impact.

So-called "strategic" drones are advanced and costly, with ranges of up to hundreds of kilometres (miles) that can deliver heavy payloads before flying back to base.

According to Amnesty International, the RSF's arsenal includes Chinese drones obtained via their allies, the United Arab Emirates, which denies arming the paramilitary. The army has deployed Turkish and Iranian drones.

The omnipresent threat has wreaked havoc on society.

"When these drones hit any site -- a market, a hospital, a school, as we have seen recently -- the impact goes beyond immediate casualties," said Grace Wairima Ndungu of Mercy Corps, one of the few aid groups still operating in Kordofan.

"Families lose access to food," she told AFP, as traders leave for safer places, prices rise in towns already threatened by famine and aid access becomes even more difficult.

- 'Everyone runs' -

Unable to seize a decisive victory on the ground, both sides have turned to drones to inflict maximum damage, with minimum risk to their depleted infantry forces.

And so areas long spared by fighting have recently been rocked by drone strikes.

In Shukeiri, an army-controlled village west of Al-Dueim in White Nile state just east of Kordofan, a blast this month shattered the silence.

"We thought the war had moved away from us," said Hashim al-Saleh, still shaken. "Until that drone hit."

Five members of his extended family were killed, including two children.

The strike hit the village's secondary school and a clinic, killing at least 17 civilians, according to the UN.

"After what we saw, we worry every day that another drone will come."

White Nile state has seen intermittent drone strikes this month, mainly on major city Kosti, where a strike on a university dormitory injured seven students.

Another hit the Um Dabakir power station, causing widespread outages.

Over 700 kilometres (450 miles) west, in RSF territory, an army drone strike last week ripped through the El-Daein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur, killing 70 and injuring 146.

Local farmer Mohamed Sayer, 63, had not yet recovered from the last deadly drone strike he witnessed two weeks prior, which caused a raging oil fire in the city market.

"I was close by, I saw the dead and the (bodies) burned," he told AFP via satellite internet connection.

In markets across the country, traders like Hamidan have developed a macabre choreography.

"As soon as the drone appears, we grab our goods and the customers disappear. Everyone runs to save themselves."