Akıncı Gives Sudan’s Army Total Command of the Skies

Sudan’s civil war is usually discussed in terms of famine, displacement and mass atrocities in Darfur, and rightly so. Yet in the shadow of this humanitarian catastrophe, a quieter transformation is underway, one that could reshape both the character of the war and the calculations of the outside powers involved. Sudan has become one of the first real battlefields where large combat drones hunt each other in the air.

Since April 2023, the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has become one of the most drone-intensive conflicts in Africa. Unmanned systems, initially used for reconnaissance and precision strikes, have in recent months begun engaging one another directly. On one side is the Sudanese army’s Turkish-made Bayraktar Akıncı; on the other, Chinese-made CH-95s believed to have reached the RSF through the United Arab Emirates. According to open-source estimates, between May and September 2026 the Akıncı shot down at least six, and possibly eight, CH-95s. There is no evidence that the army lost a single drone in these encounters.

From the test range to the battlefield

What sets these results apart from an ordinary military success is their context. The Akıncı’s air-to-air capability had been tested since early 2026 over the Black Sea off Sinop. But a test range is a controlled scenario: the target is known and the conditions are planned. Sudan, by contrast, is roughly twenty times the size of Austria, and the RSF alone controls territory about six times as large. Detecting, tracking and striking an enemy drone with a long-range missile across such an expanse shows that not only the platform, but also the pilots and support systems behind it, have matured.

The technical gap matters too. The Akıncı carries a radar capable of detecting air targets as well as ground and sea targets. Armed with munitions such as Roketsan’s EREN, which has a range exceeding 100 kilometers, it effectively behaves like an unmanned fighter aircraft. Heavier, faster and able to fly higher than the CH-95, it holds a clear advantage in the air.

The invisible rivalry between Ankara and Abu Dhabi

Yet the real significance of Sudan’s drone duels is geopolitical rather than technological. These clashes are among the most concrete expressions of the intensifying contest for influence between Türkiye and the UAE in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. Turkish platforms for the Sudanese army, Chinese systems believed to arrive via Emirati channels for the RSF: Sudan’s skies have become an arena in which two regional powers, and indirectly two arms exporters, are tested in the field.

This dynamic also helps explain why Sudan’s war has dragged on for so long. Advanced technology supplied by outside actors keeps both sides’ hopes of military victory alive and pushes negotiations further down the road. Every new success in the sky may mean a new obstacle for diplomacy on the ground.

Winners in the market, losers in the war

For Türkiye, these results are an invaluable reference in the fiercely competitive market for MALE drones. After Libya, Azerbaijan and Ukraine, Sudan is another theater where Turkish drones have proven themselves in real combat. For China, the opposite is true: the CH series’ apparent vulnerability in the air casts a shadow over Beijing’s ambitions to win market share on price.

None of this, however, changes the most fundamental reality of the war. Whose drone is superior means nothing to the millions of Sudanese who have been driven from their homes. The rivalry in the sky may be a success story for defense industries, but on the ground, it is civilians who pay the price.

Sudan’s future will not be decided by which drone downs the most targets, but by whether outside powers stop feeding this war.