Sudan’s army said paramilitary forces on Thursday launched drone strikes targeting a northern town housing a major dam, while fighting between the foes raged in the strategic region of Kordofan.
The violence comes after the Group of Seven (G7) on Wednesday sounded the alarm over the “recent escalation of violence” in Sudan’s war, which erupted more than two and a half years ago.
The war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million more and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The violence has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with the paramilitary seizing control of the key town of El-Fasher and with reports of atrocities multiplying.
On Thursday, drones “targeted the army headquarters, the airport and the Merowe Dam”, an army statement said, adding that it had intercepted the attacks that it blamed on the paramilitary.
Merowe is in an area that has been under army control for months, around 350 kilometres (220 miles) from the capital Khartoum.
It was not immediately clear whether there had been any casualties in the attacks.
A source from the intelligence service said seven projectiles had been fired, while an AFP journalist in the area heard 10 explosions.
Witnesses counted more than two dozen explosions between midnight and dawn, adding that the town, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Khartoum, was plunged into darkness after a full power cut.
The RSF has increasingly resorted to drones in recent months, though the military also uses drones to conduct strikes.
– 770 km on foot –
In late October, the RSF captured El-Fasher, the last army stronghold in the vast western Darfur region, consolidating its hold over the area.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 90,000 civilians have fled El-Fasher since it fell into paramilitary control.
Kifah, a woman in her 20s, was one of many who made the 770-kilometre journey from El-Fasher to Al-Dabbah displacement camp on foot.
The young woman, who is pregnant and has been widowed since late October, said she was “exhausted by the lack of food and water”.
She was speaking to AFP journalists who were among a number of reporters taken on an army convoy to Al-Dabbah, about 100 kilometres from Merowe.
Since the fall of El-Fasher, where the army said thousands were killed in a single day, fighting has shifted to the neighbouring Kordofan region.
The area is strategic because it bridges the west of the country with the capital.
People who had fled El-Fasher described “sexual abuse, sexual assaults, especially of girls and young women. And they described that young men were often being shot on sight”, IOM chief Amy Pope told AFP.
Pope also said that many are reporting much of the same kinds of violence in Kordofan, with the violence there forcing some 50,000 people to flee their homes.
“We need a ceasefire or humanitarian corridors so that the humanitarian organisations, the aid workers, can bring life-saving support to those who now don’t have access,” she said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday called for international action to cut off weapons to the RSF, saying any backers would face repercussions.
“I think something needs to be done to cut off the weapons and support that the RSF is getting as they continue with their advances,” he said.
The United Arab Emirates, a key US ally, has faced mounting accusations of backing the RSF — allegations Abu Dhabi denies.
Rubio declined to single out the UAE, but said: “It’s coming through some country and we know who they are and we’re going to talk to them about it and make them understand that it’s going to reflect poorly on them and it’s going to reflect poorly on the world if we can’t stop this.”
Clashes and fires have erupted in recent days in the town of Babanusa, the last army stronghold in West Kordofan state, according to satellite imagery analysed by AFP and the Vista map tracking service.
The town has been under siege for several months, as have North Kordofan state capital El-Obeid, and South Kordofan’s Kadugli and Dilling.
On Monday, the RSF said on its Telegram channel that it had deployed “large numbers” of their fighters around Babanusa to seize the army headquarters.
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© Agence France-Presse
