Egypt's drone deployment to border raises stakes in Sudan's civil war

The deployment of a powerful model of Turkish combat drone to a remote airstrip on Egypt’s southwestern border signals a sharp escalation in Sudan’s civil war, suggesting one of its largest neighbours is being drawn deeper into the fray, more than a dozen officials and regional experts say.



Egypt, which shares the Nile River and a more than 1,200-kilometre frontier with Sudan, has provided staunch political backing to the country’s military in its nearly three-year conflict with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.



But while Egyptian security officials have privately acknowledged sending logistical and technical support to the Sudanese Armed Forces, until last year Cairo mostly refrained from direct intervention in fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and spread famine across the vast country.

Cairo's position toward the conflict started to change when the RSF made a series of advances in Sudan’s western Darfur region, first capturing a strategic northwestern triangle between Egypt and Libya in June and then overrunning the Sudanese military’s last foothold in Darfur, the city of al-Fashir, in October, according to eight regional analysts and three diplomats briefed by Egyptian officials.