PORT SUDAN: The power supply was cut on Sunday following drone strikes in the Sudanese city of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, the national electricity company said, as fighting raged in the oil-rich southern region.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with Kordofan the latest battleground after the RSF launched an offensive to seize the strategic region.
“El-Obeid power station... was attacked by drones, leading to a fire in the machinery building, which led to a halt in the electricity supply,” the electricity company said.
Army-aligned forces had announced on Wednesday that they had retaken several cities south of El-Obeid from the RSF.
The Joint Forces — an umbrella organization of armed groups fighting alongside the army — said they had “achieved sweeping field victories in the North Kordofan axis.”
In a statement, the group affirmed “progress and control over several strategic areas, key among which are Kazqil, Hamadi, El-Rabash, Habila and El-Dubaibat.”
It said those areas had been “cleared of rebel militia (RSF) elements after inflicting many losses on them in lives and military equipment.”
A source in the Sudanese army told AFP that “this progress will open up the road between El-Obeid and Dilling” — a city in South Kordofan state controlled by the army and besieged by the RSF.
According to a UN-backed report, Dilling is in the throes of famine.
The army source added that government forces in Dalama to the south had cleared a path to Dilling and entered it.
Since mid-December, some 11,000 people have been displaced from North and South Kordofan states, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Since the start of the war, more than 11 million people have been displaced internally and across Sudan’s borders, many of them seeking shelter in underdeveloped areas with a lack of nutrition, medicine and clean water.
Power outage after drone strikes in Sudan’s El-Obeid
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Power outage after drone strikes in Sudan’s El-Obeid
- Since the start of the war, more than 11 million people have been displaced internally and across Sudan’s borders
Somali president visits city claimed by breakaway region
MOGADISHU: Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Friday visited a provincial capital claimed by the breakaway region of Somaliland -- the first visit there by a sitting president in over 40 years.
The visit to Las Anod, the administrative capital of the Sool region, comes amid heightened diplomatic tensions in the Horn of Africa after Israel officially recognised Somaliland, drawing strong opposition from Mogadishu.
Mohamud was attending the inauguration of the president of the newly created Northeast State, which became Somalia's sixth federal state in August.
It was the first visit by a Somali president since 1984.
Somalia is a federation of semi-autonomous states, some of which have fraught relations with the central government in Mogadishu.
The Northeast State comprises the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, all territories Somaliland claims as integral to its borders.
Somaliland had controlled Las Anod since 2007 but was forced to withdraw in 2023 after violent clashes with Somali forces and pro-Mogadishu militias left scores dead.
Mohamud's visit "is a symbol of strengthening the unity and efforts of the federal government to enforce the territorial unity of the Somali country and its people", the Somali president's office said.
