Blackouts hit wide swathes of army-controlled Sudan after drone attacks

(Reuters) - Most army-controlled areas in Sudan have been plunged into blackouts following drone attacks on power generation facilities by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, government officials and residents told Reuters.

The blackouts began on Monday after drone attacks on Merowe Dam, the country's largest, affected Sudan's northern state, while a technical issue affected River Nile and Red Sea states. The blackouts spread on Saturday after an overnight attack on the al-Shouk power station in the east of the country, putting Gedaref, Kassala and Sennar states offline, the officials and residents said.

The affected areas cover the majority of areas still controlled by the army, which has been locked in an almost two-year long war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which controls most of the western half of the country. Electricity generation in most RSF-controlled areas has been disrupted in the fighting.

Areas impacted by the blackouts are housing millions of internally displaced people, straining living space and infrastructure.

"The attack on the power station led to the disruption of electricity to hospitals, schools, and water facilities, which threatens civilian lives particularly in these difficult humanitarian circumstances," said human rights group Emergency Lawyers.

"These attacks do not only deprive civilians of their basic rights, they increase the risk of escalated violence," they added.

The war in Sudan has displaced more than 12 million people in total and the global hunger monitor estimated this month that about 24.6 million people, or around half of all Sudanese, urgently need food aid through May.

Residents in the city of Omdurman, which is in the greater Khartoum area and is partly controlled by the army, reported that bakeries were shut down and that people had resorted to drawing water from the Nile River.

Engineers are working to restore operations at the Merowe power station but have not yet been successful, sources there said.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, writing by Nafisa Eltahir, editing by Susan Fenton)