Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the United Nations peacekeeping chief, told the Security Council on Thursday that drone strikes last month killed at least 30 people in Abyei and added “a new and concerning dimension” to security in the disputed area.
The Oct. 19 attacks were the first drone strikes of their kind in Abyei, he said. They started large fires, hurt about 59 people and drove dozens of civilians from their homes. Peacekeepers are still trying to learn whether more people died than the current count shows.
The strikes came after violence on Sept. 15 in and around Amiet Common Market. Fighting that involved members of the Ngok Dinka, Misseriya and Nuba communities killed 124 people and injured 40.
Lacroix said the incidents together show that threats to stability in Abyei are changing. They reach past older patterns of fighting between communities and are more shaped by broader political and economic conflicts in the region.
Amiet is now far more than a trading post. It is Abyei’s main economic center and a crossing point for more than 49,000 refugees and returnees who fled the war in Sudan. Lacroix warned that packing trade and people into one place was creating openings for criminal networks and armed groups.
He also described progress. Recorded security incidents dropped by about 32% from the same stretch of last year. This year’s seasonal movement of cattle caused no related deaths.
Sudan and South Sudan restarted formal talks in August through their Joint Political and Security Mechanism, the first such talks since January 2023. A second meeting is set for Khartoum from Nov. 8 to Nov. 10.
He said a reported move by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to name its own representative to the Abyei Joint Oversight Committee could create rival claims of authority and pull the area deeper into Sudan’s conflict.
The Security Council is weighing the future mandate of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei, known as UNISFA. Lacroix said the conditions for any large change to how the mission is set up do not yet exist. He asked for better protection of peacekeepers from threats in the air.
“UNISFA needs the Council’s support now more than ever,” he said.
Guang Cong, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, called the October drone strikes among the deadliest events in Abyei’s history. He urged a quick, independent investigation and asked both governments to keep the area free of military forces.
In Sudan, Denise Brown, the humanitarian coordinator, warned again that drone strikes are hitting power stations and fuel sites. She said scarce fuel is badly hurting lifesaving aid work.
The United Nations said local sources reported that drones hit a station that transmits electricity and the Ar Rusayris Dam in Ed Damazine on Tuesday, setting off blackouts across a wide area. A different attack on homes killed two civilians. Also that day, air attacks in Um Bader killed two women, wounded 10 people and left two water stations severely harmed.
Aid continues to move. The UN Children’s Fund has sent drugs for malaria to 765 clinics in Darfur and West Kordofan, a supply meant for 800,000 people. As the year nears its end, less than half of the $2.9 billion request for humanitarian aid in Sudan has been raised.
On the border between Sudan and South Sudan, the International Organization for Migration warned that about 100,000 people could lose health care if the only clinic at the Wunthou crossing shuts. The clinic could close in December if urgent funding does not arrive.
The clinic has handled more than 400,000 consultations, given more than 260,000 vaccinations and helped deliver more than 1,000 babies. It still treats more than 1,000 outpatients each week.