[Source: Reuters]

Explosions and fires rocked Sudan’s wartime capital, Port Sudan, on Tuesday, a witness said, part of a days-long drone assault that has torched the country’s biggest fuel depots and damaged its main gateway for humanitarian aid.

The action included drone strikes by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that targeted Port Sudan’s container terminal, British maritime security firm Ambrey reported.

The strikes were the most intense since the Port Sudan attack began on Sunday, marking a major escalation in the two-year-old conflict.

Drones have played an increasing role in the fighting and helped the army advance earlier this year.

Massive columns of black smoke billowed from Sudan’s main strategic fuel caches near the port and airport on Tuesday, a witness in the city said, while strikes also hit an electricity substation and a hotel near the presidential residence.

The destruction of fuel facilities and damage to the airport and port risked intensifying Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, which the U.N. calls the world’s worst, by throttling aid deliveries by road and hitting power output and cooking gas supplies.

Port Sudan had enjoyed relative calm since the civil war between the army and the RSF suddenly erupted in April 2023. The Red Sea city became the base for the army-aligned government after the RSF swept through much of the capital, Khartoum, at the start of the conflict.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have also sought refuge in the city, where U.N. officials, diplomats, and agencies have also set up headquarters, making it the main base for aid operations.

Inside Port Sudan, the attack on the electricity substation led to a power outage across the city while army units deployed around public buildings, the witness said.

Momentum in the conflict has repeatedly swung back and forth, but neither side has looked likely to win outright.

The drone strikes on Port Sudan opened a new front, targeting the army’s main stronghold in eastern Sudan after it drove the RSF back westwards across much of central Sudan, including Khartoum, in March.

Military sources have blamed the paramilitary RSF for the attacks on Port Sudan since Sunday.

In a statement late Tuesday, the RSF did not address the drone attacks on Port Sudan.

But the force repeated its assertion that the army is supported by Iran and accused it of targeting civilian infrastructure and state institutions in a bid to maintain a grip on power.

The RSF said military strikes on areas like Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan were war crimes. “The RSF will never allow this to continue,” the group said.

The Port Sudan attacks came after a military source said the army had destroyed an aircraft and weapons depots at the RSF-controlled Nyala airport in Darfur, the main stronghold of the paramilitary group.

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