Paramilitaries hit Port Sudan for the first time, says the army

A drone attack, which began with the Paravilian Rough Support (RSF), struck a military airport in Port Sudan on Sunday, according to the Sudanese army.

It marked the first time the RSF attacks reached the city-de-Facto capital of Sudan’s military language Government – as the conflict between the feuding factions erupted two years ago.

Sudan’s spokesman Nabil Abdullah said RSF has launched several “suicide drones” in the East Red Sea City Port City, aimed at Osman Denia’s air base, “Warehouse for goods and some civilian facilities”.

He said they had not been reported injuries, but the attack caused “limited damage”. RSF has not commented on the incident.

Sudan immersed in a conflict in April 2023, when they understood a malicious power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and RSF, a powerful paramilitary group, before a planned transition to civil government.

At least 150,000 people are thought to have died in the subsequent civil war, with about 12 million forced to escape from their homes.

The United Nations organized the situation in Sudan as the largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis in the world, with over 30 million people in need of help and Millions facing the acute lack of food and hungerS

Before the attacks on Sunday, Port Sudan had avoided the bombing and was considered one of the safest places in the war-destroyed nation.

After SAF lost control of the capital Khartoum at the beginning of the war, Port Sudan became the headquarters of the government, led by a military, aided by General Abdel Fata-Al Burhan.

UN agencies moved their offices and staff to the coastal city and hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians fled there during the war.

“We were on the way to the plane when we were quickly evacuated and removed from the terminal,” a traveler told AFP agency on Sunday after strikes.

Video footage on social media, which the BBC has not inspected independently, seems to be showing an explosion and huge jets of black smoke stuffed in the sky.

The airport is closed and all flights are suspended, the government source told the AFP news agency.

The two -year conflict left the nation divided into rival areas.

RSF, led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti – controls the greater part of the vast Darfur region in West Sudan and parts of the south.

The military governments supported East and North Sudan, including the key city of the Red Sea in Port Sudan.

The strike on Sunday is the latest in a number of RSF drones against military and civil infrastructure on an army. On Saturday, an army source reported a drone attack on Kasala, on the eastern border of Sudan, about 250 miles (400,000) from the closest position of RSF.

SAF has returned the territory in recent months including Restore control over the Presidential Palace in Khartoum In March.

The return of the capital is regarded as a turning point in the two -year civil war, but although SAF currently has an inertia, it is unlikely that any part of the two sides will achieve a victory that will allow them to manage the entire Sudan, according to a report by the International Crisis Group.

This has been Sudan’s third civil war for 70 years, but is considered to be worse than the others, tearing the country’s nucleus and hardening divisions.

After a coup in 2021, the Council of the General governed Sudan – led by the two men at the center of the present conflict.

Al Burhan was the head of Sudan’s armed forces and, in fact, the president of the country, while Hemedti was his deputy and leader of the RSF.

The couple disagreed with the direction in which the country is located and the proposed transition to civil government – more special plans for the absorption of 100,000 strong RSFs in the army.

The tension between the army and the RSF has increased as a deadline for forming a civil government before fighting between the two countries to control the Sudanese state.

The international efforts to mediate peace have failed, and both countries are supported by foreign forces that have poured weapons in the country.