Sudanese paramilitaries attack the strategic Puerto Sudan, the capital of the army with drones | International
Different civil and military structures of Puerto Sudan, the provisional capital chosen by the military council that governs most of Sudan After the start of the civil war more than two years agoThey were attacked on Tuesday, for the third consecutive day, with an outbreak of drones presumably launched by the rapid support paramilitary forces. The series of bombings against the city, the first from the outbreak of the fighting, reflects the growing use of planes without pilot in the competition, which extends the conflict to the areas of the country so far relatively safe and threatens to accelerate its regionalization.
During the morning of Tuesday, neither the army nor the military council had spoken for the last battery of attacks against Puerto Sudan despite the fact that it was the largest reach so far, as can be seen from local information. The Sudanese media published that two of the apparent main objectives were structures located near the port and the city airport, including fuel deposits. Also a military base in the North and a target in the center near the current residence of the head of the army and the president of the town, Abdelfatá al Burhan. A hotel also suffered limited damage.
The first of the attacks with the drones in Puerto Sudan confirmed by the army took place on Sunday morning and went to a military air base, a load warehouse and civil structures near the airport. The military authorities said they had therefore detected 11 suicide drones during the assault, which lasted more than two hours and said that he left only several slight injuries among the basic workers. On Monday morning, the attack hit the country’s main fuel tank. “(The) Bombardment of fuel deposits caused explosions and the flames and smoking continue to cover the sky of the city so far”, explains Tahani Othman, a 40 -year neighbor in Puerto Sudan.
After the beginning of the war in April 2023, the army and the military council that govern the areas of the country under its control have moved Puerto Sudan, who has been acting as a provisional administrative capital since then. The city is located in the north -east of Sudan, in the Red Sea and far from the front, and also welcomes thousands of displaced interior that have fled from the fighting. Puerto Sudan is also the main port city of the country and has an airport, which has also transformed it into a key center for the arrival of military shipments, as well as in The main base of humanitarian agencies, including the United Nationsand in the main access point of the small humanitarian aid that enters the country.
The United Nations spokesman for the United Nations, Farhan Haq, announced on Monday the temporary suspension of the flights of his humanitarian service to and from Puerto Sudan, and said that attacks are a “worrying fact that threatens the protection of civilians and humanitarian operations”. Sudan undergoes the largest humanitarian crisis in the world And 30 million people need humanitarian aid today and 24 million suffer from acute hunger levels, including famine.
Although the army has relativated the victims caused by the attack of drones on Sunday against the military base, hours after the attack, a Turkish medicinal recording jet from Istanbul landed in Puerto Sudan and then returned to Turkey, according to the follow -up data of the public flight, suggesting that there could be serious injuries among the military rankings that have not been announced.
War of drones
Both the army and the rapid support forces have used drones, in particular suicides and provided by abroad or buildings locally, by the early stages of the war. But in recent months its use, in particular for paramilitary, has increased significantly, which is quickly redefining the contours of the conflicts. Among its arsenal, the rapid support forces have Chinese manufacturing drones, which are believed to have been delivered by the United Arab Emirates, its main ally, with a scope of up to 4,000 kilometers, enough to also cross a vast country like Sudan.
Initially, most of the drones attacks have concentrated in the front or nearby areas. But in recent months, the paramilitaries have been directing them against the civil and oriental civil objectives, under the control of the army, in an attempt to punish the civilian population and to wear the military council through the destruction of critical infrastructures and the disorder of essential services, in addition to the military objectives. Among the objectives of the recent attacks with the drone there are a dam, a large power plant and a school and a center of displaced people in the north of the country, as well as an airport in the south -est.
The increase in these attacks is also produced after The paramilitaries have suffered important setbacks from September in the front And they lost control of almost the entire center of Sudan, including its symbolic capital, Jardum. Army progress also led to military authorities a Accelerate your reconstruction plans in areas under your control, also at an institutional levelAnd recently the government has reformed to focus on this objective, that the rapid support forces seem to want to be silly.
In the meantime, the army is also trying to prevent rapid support forces and allied groups to consolidate their authority in the areas under their power, mainly in the western region of Darfur, included through the formation of a parallel government that is still aimed. In this sense, the army has bombed several points of Darfur in recent months, with particular attention to Nyala, to the capital of Darfur Sur, the most important city that the paramilitary control and one of the main landing points of their military supplies and where they could establish the basis of an executive future.
The increase in drones attacks in the areas controlled by the army away from the front, in particular Puerto Sudan, also threatens to region the war, since the army has repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates of having provided military support for papilitar, including drones, through neighboring countries such as Chad, South Sudan and Libya. The vice commander of the army, Yasir ad attack, even opened the doors at the end of March to take “reprisals” against the governments of Chad and South Sudan and have warned that some of its airports are legitimate military objectives.
