Drones targeted army-held areas of eastern and southern Sudan for a fifth straight day Thursday as Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militants kept up their attacks on areas formerly regarded as safe, an army source said.
Attacks targeted the main naval base outside Port Sudan, the seat of the government, as well as fuel depots in the southern city of Kosti, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The militia launched another drone attack on the Flamingo Naval Base north of Port Sudan," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the paramilitary RSF, at war with the regular army since April 2023.
Explosions were heard from the port area following the strike, the source added.
Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast had been a safe haven, hosting hundreds of thousands of displaced people and United Nations offices, until Sunday when drone strikes blamed on the RSF began.
The Security and Defense Council labelled the UAE an “aggressor state,” claiming it undermined Sudan’s sovereignty and security.
Impacting humanitarian aid
The port city is the main entry point for humanitarian aid into Sudan, and UN chief Antonio Guterres warned the attacks "threaten to increase humanitarian needs and further complicate aid operations in the country", his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
In the south, RSF drones struck fuel depots in the army-controlled southern city of Kosti, in White Nile state, setting off massive fires, a military source said.
"The militia targeted the fuel depots that supply the state with three drones, causing fires to break out," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The RSF has not commented on the attacks.
From the airport, where Sudanese airlines had resumed flights after the first drone strike on Sunday, "fires broke out in multiple buildings" following the latest explosion, an eye witness says.
Sudan civil war
More than two years of war have killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 13 million, according to UN figures.
The paramilitaries have ramped up long-distance drone attacks since losing control of nearly all of greater Khartoum to the army in March.
The conflict, which began as a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has spiralled into what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The war has effectively divided the country in two with the army controlling the north, east and centre while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south.
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