THE paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have hit several army-held cities in war-torn Sudan with drone strikes, damaging civilian infrastructure and displacing hundreds.

In North Kordofan state’s capital El Obeid, where scores of civilians have been killed over the last weeks by heavy artillery fire and drone strikes, the RSF struck the Sudanese army medical facility on Thursday May 15, killing four patients and seriously wounding 60 others. An earlier RSF strike on May 10 on the national prison in the city had killed 21 and injured 47.

RSF attacks have also been reported on towns far from the front line of its war with SAF, including a series of drone strikes on civilian infrastructure in Kassala, Northern State’s Merowe, Damazine in Blue Nile, Kosti in White Nile, and Atbara in River Nile State.

‘Lifeline for humanitarian operations’ under attack

The Red Sea state’s capital Port Sudan suffered 10 consecutive days of drone strikes which ended on May 14. These strikes were particularly alarming as Port Sudan is the hub of the humanitarian operations in the country.

The city is also the seat of Sudan’s de facto government which had evacuated from the national capital Khartoum, most of which had fallen to RSF control soon after it started fighting its former ruling partner, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), hurling the country into a civil war in April 2023.

The SAF retook most of Khartoum in late March and the RSF began these daily strikes on Port Sudan early this month. The city, which had suffered few attacks until then, has been a haven for over 500,000 people displaced by the fighting in other parts of Sudan.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has reported that between May 5 and 12, at least 550 families have been displaced by the drone strikes on Port Sudan, adding to the 13 million others forced to flee in this war that has caused the world’s largest displacement crisis.

The first of these strikes was on May 4, targeting the Port Sudan International Airport. The UN resident and humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan Clementine Nkweta-Salami described this infrastructure as “a lifeline for humanitarian operations, serving as the primary entry point for aid personnel, medical supplies, and other life-saving relief into Sudan.”

In subsequent attacks, seaport, fuel depots and an oil refinery are among the critical civilian infrastructure heavily damaged by these strikes, causing widespread blackouts Middle East Eye reported.

“The availability of fuel in Port Sudan is critical to the dispatch of humanitarian supplies to areas across Sudan in dire need of assistance. Damage to critical infrastructure could also disrupt supply chains and increase the price of basic goods, further exacerbating human suffering in what is already the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” Nkweta-Salami decried.

A union leader of port workers told Radio Dabanga that the volume of marine traffic has sharply declined since these attacks began on Port Sudan.

UAE is the regional sponsor of RSF’s terror attacks, says Sudan’s government

Eyewitnesses and government sources cited in news reports have said that the drones attacking Port Sudan were not launched from RSF-controlled territory within Sudan to its south and its west, but were flying from across the Red Sea to the east.

The government suspects that the attacks were launched from one of a string of Red Sea bases of the UAE — most likely from its Israeli-radar-protected Bosaso base in Somalia’s autonomous state of Puntland, Agenzia Fides reported.

While the UAE has denied any role in these attacks, its supply of weapons and drones to the RSF has been widely documented, including by UN investigators. UAE’s banking system has also been hosting RSF’s massive international financial network.

Deeming RSF drone strikes as terrorist attacks and accusing UAE of being its “regional sponsor,” the government has urged the international community to “pressure the UAE to stop supplying weapons, funding, and operational planning to RSF.”

Trump approves US weapons sale to UAE worth $1.6 billion 

President Donald Trump’s US administration approved a $1.6 billion-worth weapons sale to the UAE last week. Yet, in January, two weeks before Trump took office, the US State Department had “concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.”

The statement by then state secretary Antony Blinken on this determination read: “The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”

Despite the UN arms embargo, “UAE weapons and supplies have enabled RSF attacks on civilians and prolonged the fighting. The UAE claims to have ended support to the RSF but multiple credible reports and investigations — both inside and outside of the US government — indicate otherwise,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, a ranking member of the US house foreign affairs committee.

Protesting Trump’s “bypass” of the “congressional review process” in approving this weapons sale, Meeks announced on May 13 that he would introduce joint resolutions of disapproval to block the sale.

Sudan’s government appeals to China

Against this backdrop, on May 14, Sudanese Foreign Minister Omer Siddiq met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing, reportedly telling him that China was Sudan’s “most important partner and trustworthy friend.”

“We trust that China, as a friendly country, will continue its support for Sudan to achieve security and stability, and will not stand idly by in the face of attempts to undermine national security in Sudan, the region, and the world,” Sudan’s Minister of Culture and Information, Khalid al-Aiser, added on May 16, after the visit by Ambassador Zhang Xianghua to Sudan.

Expressing China’s hope that Sudan will see peace and stability soon, Wang assured that China will provide support within its capacity.

This article is republished from peoplesdispatch.org.