Major cities in Sudan including capital Khartoum and Port Sudan were plunged into darkness on Thursday, several witnesses told AFP, after deadly drone strikes targeted a key power plant in the east of the country.<\/p>\n
Strikes targeted transformers at the Al-Muqrin power station in the city of Atbara in River Nile State, the national electricity company said.<\/p>\n
A power plant official told AFP an initial strike targeted the plant and a second strike hit rescue workers, killing two rescuers and leaving one other person injured.<\/p>\n
“Two members of the civil defence were killed while trying to extinguish the fire that erupted after the first drone strike by the militia,” said a power plant official, referring to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).<\/p>\n
The fire was yet to be brought under control as of Thursday morning, according to the Sudan Electricity Company.<\/p>\n
The River Nile State government in a statement confirmed two rescue workers were killed.<\/p>\n
Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke rising in Atbara, which is controlled by the army in its ongoing war with the RSF.<\/p>\n
The damaged power station is a strategic hub in the Sudanese electricity grid, receiving power generated by the Merowe Dam — the country’s largest source of hydroelectric energy — before its redistribution to other parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Since April 2023, Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a brutal conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12 million more and devastated infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The UN says the conflict has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n
In recent months the RSF has been accused of launching drone attacks on vast areas controlled by the army, targeting civilian infrastructure and causing power outages affecting millions of people.<\/p>\n
ab-str-nda\/jfx\/ser<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Major cities in Sudan including capital Khartoum and Port Sudan were plunged into darkness on Thursday, several witnesses told AFP, after deadly drone strikes targeted a key power plant in the east of the country. Strikes targeted transformers at the Al-Muqrin power station in the city of Atbara in River Nile State, the national electricity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[95,2676,941],"class_list":["post-21465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional","tag-conflict","tag-power","tag-sudan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21468,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21465\/revisions\/21468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}