For the last three days, thick black smoke has billowed over Port Sudan. Drone attacks have targeted a number of facilities, including a fuel facility, a hospital, a hotel, the airport and the sea port, which is a primary point of delivery for humanitarian aid.
On Tuesday, drone strikes hit a major power station, causing a “complete power outage,” the country’s electricity provider said.
In addition to being a key spot where humanitarian aid enters the country, Port Sudan has also been a gathering place for hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Many citizens have sought refuge there as fighting between the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military has destroyed the capital city of Khartoum.
Sudan’s minister of information and the official government spokesman, Khalid Ali Aleisir, accused the paramilitary group, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of carrying out a “criminal and terrorist attack” in a post on social media. “The will of the Sudanese people will remain unshakable,” he said. The RSF has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The crisis in Sudan already was the world’s largest humanitarian crisis on record. It is also the largest and fastest displacement crisis on record. Now, the suicide drone attacks are being called a “significant escalation that expands the geographic and strategic scope” of an already devastating war that has claimed upwards of 150,000 lives, has displaced more than 12 million Sudanese residents and has left more than 30 million in dire need. Earlier this year, the Sudanese Group for Defending Rights and Freedoms said it had recorded 50,000 missing persons cases since the beginning of the war.
How the Sudan crisis started
This most recent conflict, in a country plagued by civil war, erupted between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, 2023. The two sides, who previously worked together to unseat longtime Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, could not come to an agreement on who should be in power. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, began another brutal conflict.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes and gross violations of human rights. The Sudanese army has been accused of using chemical weapons and “blatant disregard of civilian lives.” The RSF has been accused of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide against the non-Arab Masalit ethnic group. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has said rape is being used as “a weapon of war.”
Famine, public health emergencies
Hunger has reached catastrophic levels in Sudan, with famine confirmed in 10 areas and 17 more at risk, according to the World Food Program. Nearly 7.7 million people — over half the population — is facing crisis, emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC3-IPC5 on the Integrated Food Phase Classification, the global standard for measuring food insecurity).
This includes some 3.1 million people in the conflict-hit Greater Upper Nile region in South Sudan’s northeast. “The situation is desperate,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, Country Director for the World Food Programme (WFP) in South Sudan, during a UN press briefing in early April. “We are witnessing the devastating impact that conflict has in driving hunger.”
The Trump administration’s aid cuts have hit Sudan particularly hard. According to the New York Times, which just won a Pulitzer for its Sudan reporting, there are few places where the effects of the cuts are seen as clearly as in Sudan. Within days, over 300 soup kitchens in Khartoum, run by Emergency Response Rooms, were forced to close. An email in April from the State Department said the United States was still helping Sudan. On the ground, though, aid groups say the money has stopped.
“In addition to being a famine crisis, the humanitarian situation in Sudan also is a protection and health crisis,” said Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization Representative in the country. According to UN reports, over 20.3 million people are now in urgent need of medical care. Cholera, measles, malaria and dengue are spreading rapidly across two-thirds of Sudan’s states, with cholera alone claiming over 1,500 lives. Health care infrastructure has collapsed in numerous areas.
As the conflict in Sudan continues to unfold, the international community is faced with an urgent call to action. With millions of lives hanging in the balance, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis demands not just immediate aid but also a sustainable path to peace. The harrowing impact of the violence extends beyond physical destruction. It is a deep wound that will affect generations — if they survive.