Attack on key power station plunges Kordofan’s largest city into darkness amid escalating conflict..

A paramilitary drone strike on a power plant on Tuesday caused a blackout in Sudan’s key Kordofan city of El Obeid, a local official and an eyewitness told reporters.

A drone belonging to the Rapid Support Forces bombed the city’s power station early in the morning, causing a fire, an official with the state electricity company said. The official requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

CBI News reports that El Obeid is the largest city in Sudan’s Kordofan region and has become one of the fiercest battlegrounds in the war between the RSF and the Sudanese army, which began in April 2023.

North Kordofan state capital El Obeid sits at a strategic crossroads linking RSF-controlled Darfur in the west with army-held territory in the east, including the capital Khartoum.

For a year, after the army broke a prolonged RSF siege, the paramilitary group has sought to encircle the city, launching drone strikes and attacking nearby towns.

In recent weeks, the army has mounted a counteroffensive, breaking the siege on Kordofan’s two other major cities, Dilling and Kadugli, where hundreds of thousands had faced severe hunger.

Since the war began, tens of thousands have been killed and around 11 million people displaced, creating what aid agencies describe as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis.

The conflict has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army controlling the north, centre and east, while the RSF and its allies hold much of the west and parts of the south.