Loud explosions: Drone strikes hit Port Sudan airport and army base
The country’s main fuel depot was hit on Monday, causing a massive blaze just south of the eastern city that had until Sunday been considered a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of displaced people fleeing a two-year war.
One drone struck the civilian section of the Port Sudan airport, an airport official told Agence France-Press, two days after the facility’s military base was first attacked in drone strikes the army blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
All flights were grounded at the wartorn country’s main international port of entry, the source added.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent reported loud explosions at dawn on Tuesday and plumes of smoke over the coastal city, one coming from the direction of the port and another from a fuel depot just south.
Another drone targeted the main army base in the city centre, an army source said, while witnesses reported a nearby hotel was hit.
Both sites are close to the residence of Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who has been at war with his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the commander of the RSF, since April 2023.
A third drone hit a fuel depot near the southern port in the densely populated city centre, where the UN, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people have relocated from Khartoum.
Witnesses in the city’s north reported anti-aircraft fire from a military base.
The RSF has increasingly relied on drones since losing territory including nearly all of Khartoum in March, attacking deep into army-held territory.
Explosions were heard early on Tuesday morning across Port Sudan, where the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Monday reports of paramilitary attacks were a “worrying development threatening the protection of civilians and humanitarian operations”.
The international court of justice on Monday threw out a case brought by Sudan against the UAE, accusing it of complicity in genocide by supporting the RSF.
Sudan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it “respected” the ruling, which came on the basis of the ICJ’s lack of jurisdiction due to the UAE’s 2005 “reservation” on the UN genocide convention.
