By Khalid Abdelaziz
AL-DAMAR, Sudan (Reuters) – At least 11 people were killed after a drone strike by the Rapid Support Forces hit a displacement camp in Sudan’s River Nile state, the governor said in a statement, in an attack that also took out the regional power station for the fourth time.
The RSF, which denies carrying out drone attacks and did not respond to a request for comment, has targeted power stations in army-controlled locations in central and northern Sudan for the past several months, but the strikes had not previously left major death tolls.
“This morning we heard a large explosion and we found two families that had been burnt completely inside their tents, while they were sleeping,” said teacher Mashair Hemeidan as she shed tears.
“We had left Khartoum fearful of the war and now the war has followed us here. I don’t know where I will go with my family and children, we have no shelter or place to go to,” she added.
The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country’s electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan.
Ground fighting in the war is now focused in the Darfur region, where the RSF is fighting to seize the army’s remaining foothold, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. There has also been fighting in western Omdurman, part of the capital where the RSF remains present.
The Friday morning attack by multiple missiles, which set some of the tents on fire, injured 23 other people, a medical official said. Reuters witnesses saw at least nine children among the injured.
“My nine-year-old son Ahmed was killed today, and now my nine-year-old Fadi and my seven-year-old Omnia are in the hospital,” said Fadwa Adlan, a resident of the camp.
Some 179 families displaced by the fighting in the capital had been living in difficult conditions in an abandoned building and surrounding tents outside the town of al-Damer, receiving little in the way of humanitarian assistance. The camp was located about three kilometers (1.9 miles) from the Atbara power station which was also struck.
On Friday, authorities could be seen hosing down the residents’ belongings destroyed in the fire and breaking down the camp. Residents were seen boarding buses to an unknown location.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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