Main cities throughout Sudan, together with the capital, Khartoum, and coastal metropolis Port Sudan, have been plunged into darkness after drone strikes hit a key energy plant within the nation’s east.
Flames and smoke rose from the power in Atbara, River Nile state on Thursday, which is managed by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and underneath assault by the paramilitary Fast Assist Forces (RSF) within the ongoing civil struggle that has ripped the nation aside.
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Footage circulating on social media exhibiting the ability station ablaze has been verified by Al Jazeera.
Two civil defence members had been killed, energy plant officers mentioned, whereas attempting to extinguish the hearth that erupted after the primary strike, including that rescue staff had been injured when a second drone hit as they battled the flames.
Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Vall in Port Sudan reported that residents initially thought a routine energy lower had occurred, solely to study it was linked to incidents in Atbara, roughly 320km (about 230 miles) north of Khartoum.
He added that such strikes have grow to be a frequent incidence in Sudan’s struggle.
“We’ve seen this many instances in the course of the throughout this present yr and the final yr. The RSF drones are going hundreds of kilometres throughout Sudan as a result of they assume it’s a technique to weaken the federal government and to show to the inhabitants they’ll’t be protected by this navy authorities,” Vall mentioned.
The assault marks the most recent escalation in a devastating drone marketing campaign that has killed at least 104 civilians across Sudan’s Kordofan area since early December. The deadliest strike hit a kindergarten and hospital in Kalogi, South Kordofan, the place 89 individuals died, together with 43 youngsters and eight girls.
Six Bangladeshi peacekeepers had been killed when drones struck their base in Kadugli on December 13, prompting UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres to warn that focusing on peacekeepers “could represent struggle crimes underneath worldwide regulation”.
A day later, the Dilling Army Hospital got here underneath hearth, killing a minimum of six individuals and wounding 12, lots of them medical employees.
The usage of drones has been in depth by each the SAF and RSF in latest months.
In response to the US-based assume tank Africa Middle for Strategic Research, 484 drone strikes occurred throughout 13 African international locations in 2024, with Sudan accounting for 264 of them, greater than half the continental whole. By March 2025, the depth had surged additional, with the SAF claiming it shot down greater than 100 drones in simply 10 days.
Sexual violence ‘escalating alarmingly’
Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when an influence battle between the SAF and RSF exploded into open preventing. The struggle has killed greater than 100,000 individuals, in line with some estimates, however the true toll stays unclear.
The battle has created what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian disaster, with greater than 14 million individuals displaced and a minimum of 30 million needing important help. Greater than 40,000 individuals have fled North Kordofan alone, whereas civilians stay trapped in besieged cities.
For the third consecutive yr, Sudan topped the Worldwide Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist launched on Tuesday, as world humanitarian funding has shrunk by 50 p.c. A Thomson Reuters Basis ballot of twenty-two support companies named Sudan the world’s most uncared for disaster of 2025.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed on Wednesday that greater than 1,600 individuals have been killed in 65 assaults on medical services throughout Sudan this yr. “Each assault deprives extra individuals from well being companies and medicines,” he mentioned.
Seif Magango, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights workplace, additionally informed Al Jazeera on Wednesday that sexual violence was additionally “escalating alarmingly”, with girls bearing the battle’s biggest value. Ladies face “gang rape whereas concurrently attempting to flee from killing and bombs,” he mentioned, describing circumstances as significantly horrific in el-Fasher.
The heaviest preventing has now shifted from Darfur to the nation’s central areas the place the nation is bisected between territory managed by the RSF and SAF.
A report launched on Tuesday by Yale College of Public Well being’s Humanitarian Analysis Lab discovered that RSF forces engaged in a “systematic multi-week marketing campaign to destroy proof” of mass killings in el-Fasher by burial, burning and removing of human stays after the town fell in October.
