KHARTOUM: A paramilitary drone strike on a power plant Tuesday caused a blackout in Sudan’s key Kordofan city of El-Obeid, a local official and an eyewitness told AFP.
“A drone belonging to the Rapid Support Forces bombed the city’s power station early this morning, causing a fire,” an official with the state electricity company said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. El-Obeid is the largest city in Sudan’s Kordofan region, currently the fiercest battlefield in the war raging between the RSF and the regular army since April 2023.
For a year, since the army broke a long-running RSF siege, the paramilitary has been trying to encircle the city, including by launching drone strikes and attacking nearby towns.
“I heard an explosion at 2:00 a.m. (0000 GMT) then saw flames coming from the direction of the station,” city resident Awad Ali told AFP. “It’s now past 9:00 a.m. and power isn’t back.”
North Kordofan state capital El-Obeid lies on a key crossroads that connects RSF-controlled Darfur in the west with the army-controlled east, including the capital Khartoum.
