Power blackouts occurred in army-controlled Sudan following drone strikes

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ drone assaults on power producing facilities have caused outages in the majority of army-controlled parts of Sudan, residents and government officials told Reuters.

The blackouts started on Monday after a technical problem damaged the states of the Red Sea and the Nile, while drone assaults on the nation’s largest dam, Merowe Dam, hit the northern state of Sudan. An overnight attack on the al-Shouk power facility in the country’s east caused the blackouts to spread on Saturday, cutting out power to Gedaref, Kassala, and Sennar states, according to officials and locals.

The impacted regions encompass the vast majority of territories still under army control. The army has been engaged in a nearly two-year conflict with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which commands the bulk of the country’s western half. In the majority of RSF-controlled territories, the fighting has interfered with the production of electricity.

The outages are putting a strain on infrastructure and living space in areas where millions of internally displaced people reside.

“The attack on the power station led to the disruption of electricity to hospitals, schools, and water facilities, which threatens civilian lives particularly in these difficult humanitarian circumstances,” stated Emergency Lawyers, a human rights organization.

“These attacks do not only deprive civilians of their basic rights, but they also increase the risk of escalated violence,” they said.

The global hunger monitor predicted this month that over 24.6 million people, or nearly half of all Sudanese, urgently need food help through May. The conflict in Sudan has caused the displacement of over 12 million people overall.

In the army-controlled city of Omdurman, in the broader Khartoum region, residents said bakeries had been closed and that residents had turned to using the Nile River for water.

According to reports there, engineers are trying but have not yet been successful in restoring operations at the Merowe power facility.