By Khalid Abdelaziz
DUBAI (Reuters) -A drone strike targeted an eastern Sudanese army base during a visit by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, eyewitnesses told Reuters on Wednesday, casting doubt over recent efforts to bring an end to a 15-month civil war.
A statement by the army said the attack took place at a graduation ceremony at the Gibeit army base, about 100 km (62 miles) from the army’s de facto capital Port Sudan in Sudan’s Red Sea state, and that five people were killed.
An adviser to the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the army’s rival in the war, denied that the paramilitary force was responsible for the strike.
Witnesses said Burhan was at the base during the strike. Officials from the government, which is aligned with the army, said he was taken safely to Port Sudan afterwards.
“We heard sounds of explosions all of a sudden and everyone ran scared,” said one eyewitness, noting that many families of graduating officers were present.
A video shared on social media and verified by Reuters showed soldiers marching in a graduation ceremony before a whirring sound is heard followed by the sound of an explosion. Another video shows a cloud of dust and scores of people running.
Footage shared by the military that it says was filmed in Gibeit after the graduation ceremony shows Burhan being mobbed by cheering civilians, chanting “one army, one people.”
The drone attack is the latest in a string of such attacks on army locations in recent months, and the closest to Port Sudan. Over the past two days, drone strikes have hit Kosti, Rabak, and Kenana in Sudan’s southern White Nile state, as well as al-Damer, to the north of the capital, according to locals.
The RSF has not commented on those strikes.
War broke out between the RSF and the regular army in April 2023 over plans to integrate the two forces under a political transition towards elections.
The two forces had shared power uneasily after staging a coup in 2021, derailing a previous transition that followed the overthrow of former leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
The conflict has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, pushed half the population into a hunger crisis and driven more than 10 million out of their homes.
PLANS FOR PEACE TALKS
The latest strike came after the army-aligned foreign ministry conditionally accepted a U.S. invitation to talks in Switzerland in August. The RSF responded to the ministry’s statement on Tuesday saying it would only negotiate with the army and not Islamists who dominate the civil service.
On Wednesday an RSF official blamed the drone strike on Islamist elements. “The RSF has nothing to do with the drones that targeted Gibeit today…they are the result of internal disagreements, between Islamists,” legal adviser Mohamed al-Mukhtar told Reuters.
In recent weeks, the RSF has renewed its efforts to capture more territory, and has staged incursions into the southeastern state of Sennar, displacing more than 165,000 people, as well as White Nile and al-Gedaref states.
Last year, it swiftly took control of the capital Khartoum, followed by most of the Darfur region and El Gezira state, though it has continued to shell the city of al-Fashir, one of 14 sites in Sudan where experts warn of famine.
Previous efforts to mediate the conflict have failed to secure a lasting ceasefire, and many Sudanese consider the talks in Switzerland as the best opportunity to negotiate an end to the war.
The talks are co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia and are to include Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which the army and others have said is supporting the RSF, in particular with weaponry such as drones. The UAE denies the accusation.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Dubai; Writing by Nafisa Eltahir and Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ros Russell)
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