(Port-Soudan) A new explosion was reported on Monday evening in the Port-Soudan oil depot, a provisional seat of the Sudanese government, due to the spread of a fire triggered earlier in the day by a drone attack on paramilitaries, a government official told AFP.
Posted at 5:12 p.m.
“The explosion that occurred tonight is due to the confraction of one of the tanks, caused by the spread of the fire,” said the official on condition of anonymity, adding that the government had asked for help from Saudi Arabia for sending a fire -fighting aircraft.
On the spot, an AFP correspondent reported that “the whole sky has become red” after a new detonation which occurred at the end of the day was observed by witnesses.
The main oil depot in Sudan had caught fire on Monday morning, according to the Ministry of Energy, after a drone attack on paramilitaries, at war with the army since April 2023.
Photo of the Sudanese Energy Ministry, provided by Reuters
Smoke rises in Port-Soudan, Sudan, May 5, 2025.
Sudan has been prey since April 2023 to a power struggle between the chief of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, at the head of the paramilitaries of the rapid support forces (FSR).
Earlier, the Ministry of Energy had condemned in a press release a “terrorist attack” which targeted “the largest fuel storage site in the region”, in the east of the country, worried about a “possible disaster in the area”.
No victim was reported after this strike attributed by the ministry to the “militia” of the FSR.
On Sunday, paramilitaries had for the first time led a drone attack at Port-Soudan airport causing the temporary flight suspension.
On Monday, AFP correspondents saw thick black smoke rise for hours above the port city located on the Red Sea. According to the press release from the Ministry of Energy, the fire has spread to neighboring tanks.
The FSRs, which have lost several positions in recent months, are increasingly using drones to strike in depth in the areas controlled by the troops of General Al-Burhane.
The army, chased from Khartoum by the FSR at the start of the war, had withdrew to the east and had transferred the government’s seat to Port-Soudan, which also houses UN agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced. At the end of March, Khartoum was taken over to the paramilitaries.
The war in Sudan made tens of thousands of deaths, uprooted 13 million inhabitants and plunged certain regions in famine, causing “the worst catastrophe for humanity” in the world, according to the UN.
