Drone attacks on five Sudan power substations caused extensive damage and cut electricity across the country’s south-east on Monday, according to Sudan Electricity Holding Company. The utility blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and said engineers had been dispatched to assess the damage and begin repairs.
The company’s statement, reported by Anadolu, identified the substations as Singa, Al-Hawata, Al-Faw, Mashkur and Al-Junaid. It said the damage disrupted the south-eastern grid, affecting Sennar, Gedaref, White Nile and Gezira states, and threatened the stability of the national network.
No restoration deadline was given in the reported statement. Sending repair teams does not establish that electricity has been restored, and a verified account of the network’s condition on Tuesday morning was not available.
In Sennar, the state government said a drone struck the Singa transformer station on Monday morning. The attack damaged the facility and injured members of its guard team, who were taken for treatment, according to the statement reported by Sudan Tribune. It did not give an injury count.
Sources at the El Geneid sugar factory told Sudan Tribune that the transformer station there was struck at about 2.30am and put out of service. The publication separately reported attacks on Al-Faw and Al-Hawata in Gedaref and Mashkur in White Nile.
The RSF had not responded to Sudan Tribune’s request for comment when its report was published. Responsibility for the attacks remains attributed to the utility, state authorities and the sources cited in those reports.
The outages also disrupted household refrigeration. Babiker Youssef, a resident of Al-Fao in Gedaref, told AFP that his son’s insulin needed to be kept cold and that he did not know when electricity would return. An AFP correspondent in Gezira reported that power had been out since 2am.
The electricity company’s account includes four affected states. An earlier account from an unnamed government official to AFP named three. Both described five facilities being attacked, rather than separate sets of five strikes.
The Sudanese army and the RSF have been fighting since April 2023. Monday’s reported substation attacks are a separate development from the United Nations’ earlier assessment of drone casualties during the first three weeks of October.
Illustration: Sudan national flag by SKopp, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Identifies the country, not the attacks, damaged facilities or their locations. Resized for display.
