Outages in Sudan after major drone attack hits power plant

Sudan

Port Sudan –  Sudanese paramilitaries launched a large-scale drone attack in the east on Thursday, a military source told AFP, with strikes hitting a key power station, causing major outages and killing three.

Five more people were killed in a drone strike on the city of Dilling in the southern Kordofan region, where the Sudanese army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are wrestling for control.Since April 2023, their war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions more and devastated infrastructure.Dilling is one of several cities in Kordofan technically controlled by the army, but surrounded by fighters from the RSF and their allies.The United Nations says trapped civilians are likely facing famine conditions, but a lack of access to data has prevented a formal declaration.

Thursday marked the third day of consecutive drone strikes, which have killed at least 21 people, according to doctors in the city’s main hospital.

One of the attacks struck civilians in a municipal health unit, the latest of dozens of such attacks this year alone.

Attacks on health facilities have killed 1,600 people across the country in 2025, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

The RSF has focused its attention on Kordofan in recent weeks, emboldened by their October capture of the army’s last holdout position in the western Darfur region.

The fighting has since displaced over 50,000 people, according to the UN.

 Attacks on infrastructure 

In Sudan’s army-held north, entire cities were left in the dark through the evening.

“We’ve been without power since 2:00 am (0000 GMT),” Abdel Rahim al-Amin, an official in Port Sudan, told AFP. “We hope it will be restored soon.”

The attacks “led to power outages in several states”, the national electricity company said.

This year the RSF has been accused of launching drone attacks on vast areas controlled by the army, targeting civilian infrastructure and causing power cuts affecting millions.

“At dawn this morning, the militia (RSF) launched 35 drones against the cities of Atbara, Al-Damer and Berber in River Nile State, targeting civilian infrastructure,” a military source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Strikes in government-controlled Atbara in River Nile State targeted transformers at the Al-Muqrin power station, the national electricity company said, after witnesses reported flames and smoke was seen rising above the city.

An official at the power plant told AFP an initial strike targeted the plant overnight. A second strike hit rescue workers, killing two and injuring another person.

A River Nile State government statement confirmed two rescue workers’ deaths, saying they were killed “by militias who have no respect for human life”.

The damaged power station is a strategic hub in Sudan’s electricity grid, receiving power generated by the Merowe Dam — the country’s largest source of hydroelectric energy — before its redistribution to other areas.

According to witnesses, power outages have spread to several states, including those along the Nile and the Red Sea — where Port Sudan, the interim seat of the pro-military government, is located.

Emergency Lawyers, an NGO that documents atrocities in the conflict, reported strikes in Atbara that hit civilian homes, killing a young girl and injuring four.

 Trump ‘vision’ 

The war in Sudan has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan visited Cairo on Thursday “to discuss ways to resolve the Sudanese crisis”, the spokesman for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said.

Hopes for a breakthrough in talks on ending the war were rekindled last month when US President Donald Trump said he would “start working on Sudan” after the conflict was brought to his attention by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, although little is known so far about any specific proposals.

Sisi’s office on Thursday voiced its “full support for” what it called Trump’s vision for “security, stability and peace in Sudan”.

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Source: AFP

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