Drone assaults in Khartoum for the third straight day

KHARTOUM – (Special Correspondent / Web Desk) – Drones hit Sudan’s army-held capital and airport on Thursday, witnesses told AFP, marking the third day of such assaults.

“At 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT), I heard the sound of two drones passing above us,” one witness stated, adding that the drones were headed for military facilities.

Another witness reported seeing the drones going toward the airport and hearing explosions shortly after.

Since Tuesday, the airport, which has been out of service for more than two years, has been subjected to multiple drone assaults blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), against whom the regular army has been fighting since April 2023.

The airport was due to reopen on Wednesday, but this was postponed “under further notice,” an airport official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Following a months-long offensive, the army recaptured Khartoum from the RSF in March, but the city remains largely devastated, with frequent power outages and the paramilitaries intensifying drone attacks on the city.

More than a million people who had been displaced by the war have returned over the past 10 months, according to the United Nations’ migration agency.

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In the past weeks, the government has sought to reopen key services and move institutions back to Khartoum after they had largely fled to the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast.

Now well into its third year, the war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced about 12 million more and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.