Paramilitaries Launch First Attack On Port Sudan: Army

Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government in the country's two-year war.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), battling the regular army since April 2023, have increasingly used drones since losing territory including much of the capital Khartoum in March.

Army spokesman Nabil Abdallah said in a statement that the RSF "targeted Osman Digna Air Base, a goods warehouse and some civilian facilities in the city of Port Sudan with suicide drones".

He reported no casualties but "limited damage" in the Red Sea coastal city.

AFP images showed smoke billowing from the airport area, about 650 kilometres (400 miles) from the nearest known RSF positions on Khartoum's outskirts.

Later Sunday, an AFP correspondent reported anti-aircraft missiles targeting another drone flying towards an air base west of the city.

In the eastern border town of Kassala near Eritrea, some 500 kilometres south of Port Sudan, witnesses said three drones hit the airport after a drone targeted it for the first time on Saturday.

At dawn Sunday, an AFP correspondent in Port Sudan said his home about 20 kilometres from the airport shook as explosions were heard.

A passenger told AFP from the airport that "we were on the way to the plane when we were quickly evacuated and taken out of the terminal".

Flights to and from Port Sudan, the main port of entry since the war began, resumed from 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) after the airport closed temporarily, a Civil Aviation Authority statement said.

The rare attacks on Port Sudan and Kassala airports, both far from areas that have seen much of the fighting, come as the RSF expanded both the scope and frequency of its drone strikes.

The paramilitaries led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo are battling the regular army, headed by Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in a devastating war that has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 13 million.

In the conflict's early days, the government relocated from Khartoum to Port Sudan, which until Sunday's attack had been spared the violence.

UN agencies have also moved their operations to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge.

The conflict has left Africa's third largest country effectively divided.

The army controls the centre, east and north, while the RSF has conquered nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and parts of the south.

Lacking the army's fighter jets, the RSF has relied on drones for air power.

Sudanese analyst Hamid Khalafallah said the RSF has increasingly relied on long-range drones after the "strategic setback of losing Khartoum".

"Without changing their strategy, they risk being confined to Darfur," Khalafallah told AFP, adding that the RSF's ambitions go beyond that region.

He said drones help it "create panic and destabilise" northern and eastern cities such as Port Sudan.

Sudan's government has accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying the paramilitaries with advanced drones. The UAE has long denied reports from UN experts, US politicians and international organisations that it provided support to the RSF.

Satellite imagery analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, which tracks the conflict using remote sensing data, shows six advanced drones at the RSF-controlled Nyala Airport in Darfur.

In an April report, it said the Chinese-made drones "may be capable of long-range surveillance and strikes".

Saudi Arabia, which had previously mediated truce talks, on Sunday condemned RSF attacks "on vital facilities and infrastructure in Port Sudan and Kassala", calling them "a threat to regional stability" and security.

Sunday's was the latest RSF drone attack on military and civilian infrastructure deep in army-held territory.

A retired Sudanese army general, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the attacks "serve to send a message" that "there is no safe place" for the RSF's rivals.

"Their other objective is to halt air traffic," he said, as well as "destroying the weapons depot at the Osman Digna base, which would impact the armed forces' supply chain".

A drone on Thursday struck an army base in the southern city of Kosti, about 100 kilometres from the border with South Sudan.

In late April, a drone strike on the city of Atbara, half way between Port Sudan and Khartoum, caused electricity blackouts in several areas.