Paramilitaries launch drones, ground attacks across Sudan

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces launched drone strikes on capital Khartoum and other army-controlled cities. [Ebrahim Hamid, AFP]

Drones targeted the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Thursday as paramilitary forces launched ground attacks in central Sudan and in the southeast near the Ethiopian border, sources from both sides reported.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by a war between the Sudanese military, led by its chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Drones and anti-aircraft missiles were seen by AFP correspondents over Khartoum on Thursday for the second day in a row, as army and paramilitary sources reported RSF attacks across the country.

Southwest of Khartoum, the paramilitary launched a counteroffensive on the highway connecting the capital with the southern region of Kordofan's largest city, El-Obeid.

An army source reported "an attack with a large number of vehicles on the town of Jabret al-Sheikh, which was preceded by drone strikes".

An RSF source confirmed a battle was ongoing there as well as in the town of Bara further south, which both sides have struggled to hold as they wrestle for control over El-Obeid's northern axis.

Both sources requested anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

An AFP correspondent in the capital reported anti-aircraft missiles fired from Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, followed by the sound of an explosion.

"Military air defences engaged with the militia's drones and downed them," an army source told AFP.

The latest attacks come a day after the RSF launched far-reaching coordinated drone strikes targeting five army-controlled cities hundreds of kilometres apart.

Wednesday's strikes killed two people in El-Obeid and paralysed the city's market, the Emergency Lawyers, a rights group that documents atrocities on both sides of the war, said Thursday.

Across the country, aid workers estimate more than 200,000 people have been killed in what the UN calls a "war of atrocities". The conflict has also caused the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.