No more city in Sudan is safe. For the sixth day in a row, Port-Soudan, on the shores of the Red Sea, woke up on Friday May 9, to the sound of the buzzing of drones and detonations of anti-aircraft batteries. Since Sunday, the country’s de facto capital, in the hands of the Sudanese armed forces (FAS) of General Abdel Fattah al-Bourhane, has been the target of drone attacks in series charged to the paramilitary militia of the rapid support forces (FSR), led by General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, alias “Hemetti”.
Bordered by turquoise waters, more than 800 kilometers by road north-east of Khartoum, Port-Soudan was so far a haven that the regular army thought was inviolable. Since April 15, 2023 and the start of the war in Khartoum, epicenter of fighting, all of the institutions in the country had moved there. The population of Port-Soudan, estimated before the war at nearly 300,000 inhabitants, has been multiplied by two, inflated by successive waves of civilians thinking of finding refuge while the coast has so far been spared by the fighting. Now, as everywhere in Sudan, heaven has become a threat.
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