KHARTOUM
Drones attacked the Sudanese capital and two northern cities at dawn on Wednesday, an media correspondent and witnesses reported, in what appeared to be a coordinated strike after months of calm in Khartoum.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by war between the Sudanese military, led by its chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The capital Khartoum, which was recaptured by the army last year leading to the return of 2.3 million people, has been targeted by drone strikes before but enjoyed relative calm for months. An media correspondent in the city reported a drone attack at 5 am (0300 GMT) along with the sound of anti-aircraft missiles from the direction of the army’s Wadi Seidna base, just north of the twin city of Omdurman.
Witnesses in the northern cities of Atbara and El-Damer — both also under army control — gave similar reports of hearing explosions and seeing drones in the sky. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The conflict has also caused the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises. Burhan and Dagalo, allies until they fell out in a bitter power struggle, have spent most of the war in a relative stalemate, unwilling to hold negotiations while vying for a decisive battlefield advantage.
The RSF last year consolidated its hold on the vast western region of Darfur, and has since pushed to seize territory in the southern Kordofan region and along the southeastern Ethiopian border. The army holds the country’s center, north and east, and last month clinched a victory in Kordofan by pushing the RSF off a key highway leading to the capital.
Dagalo in the aftermath said he would “unleash” his fighters — already accused of war crimes including genocide — and his forces have since repeatedly threatened a large-scale retaliatory attack.
