Drones attacked the city of Merowe, located in northern Sudan, on Thursday, according to military sources. Merowe hosts one of the country’s main dams and is situated in an area controlled by the military. The military has attributed the attack to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
According to an intelligence source, seven missiles were reportedly fired, but an AFP correspondent in the region reported hearing ten explosions, while witnesses described up to 28 detonations between midnight and dawn.
The drone’s targeted strategic sites such as the military headquarters, the airport, and the Merowe Dam, located about 350 kilometers north of Khartoum in the Northern State. A statement from the 19th Army Division clarified that the drones were intercepted after the attacks. As a result, the city was plunged into complete darkness due to a power outage, witnesses reported.
The use of drones in the deadly conflict, which has been raging for more than two years between the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by General Mohamed Dagalo (formerly Burhan’s deputy), has become increasingly frequent. The RSF has already carried out several attacks against both military and civilian infrastructure, including in October in Khartoum and in the spring in Port Sudan.
Since the RSF captured the city of El-Fasher at the end of October, the last military stronghold in the Darfur region, the paramilitaries have controlled the entire western part of the country, an area the size of France. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly 90,000 civilians, three-quarters of whom were already displaced, have fled this area.
In a message posted Thursday on his X account, General Burhan emphasized that civilians fleeing RSF-controlled areas, particularly El-Fasher, « prefer to travel thousands of kilometers » to reach areas held by the army, where they find some security and means of subsistence. The Sudanese president recently visited the al-Dabbah displacement camp, located about 100 kilometers from Merowe.
Since the fall of El-Fasher, fighting has concentrated in the Kordofan region, rich in oil resources and strategically located between Khartoum and Darfur. Babanusa, the army’s last stronghold in Western Kordofan, has been the scene of intense clashes and fires in recent days. According to satellite images and the Vista Map platform, the city has been under siege for several months, as have El-Obeid, Kadougli, and Dilling in Kordofan.