Drone attacks on power stations leave Sudan’s cities in darkness
Repeated drone strikes on Sudan’s power stations have plunged cities into prolonged blackouts, turning daily survival into a medical emergency for civilians such as Kamal Mohammed, 42, who lives in Port Sudan’s al-Taqaddum neighbourhood. He depends on daily insulin for diabetes, but outages last so long that his refrigerator fails and he sometimes skips doses. Some people buy ice to keep medicine cool; Kamal, whose salary is no more than 150,000 Sudanese pounds ($14.4), says a small block can cost 7,000 pounds ($0.67) a day. Before the war his monthly electricity bill was at most 3,000 pounds ($0.28); it can now reach 100,000 pounds ($9.61), even as cuts reduce usage. Those who can pay have turned to solar systems costing between 4 and 6 mil.
The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), former allies who clashed in April 2023, has displaced more than 14 million people, including about 4.5 million who fled abroad, and is believed to have killed more than 150,000. Fighting has increasingly hit civilians and infrastructure: drone attacks killed more than 160 people in a few days in western Sudan in October, and hospitals, displacement camps and markets have been targeted. The RSF has intensified strikes on power stations around Khartoum state over the past month, leaving the capital with blackouts of six hours to a full day and no reliable schedule. Between 20 October and 2 November 2026 there were at least 18 attacks on electricity infrastructure in at least nine states. Generation has fallen from about 4,400 megawatts before the war to about 1,100MW, according to The Associated Press.
Political analyst Mohammed al-Husseini said the RSF stepped up attacks on civilian infrastructure after the SAF captured strategically important towns in Kordofan and elsewhere, aiming to weaken the economy, disrupt agriculture and industry ahead of a new season, and deepen humanitarian pressure by cutting water, communications and medical care, including dialysis. UN resident and humanitarian coordinator Denise Brown said there is no defence for repeatedly hitting power and fuel stations, noting that dialysis patients go untreated, women give birth without hospital lights, and operations cannot take place.
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