Large plumes of black smoke billowed over Sudan’s de facto wartime capital on Tuesday, as attacks on a city that had become a haven for civilians fleeing civil war stretched into a third day.
The Sudanese paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces has launched a series of drone attacks on the military-controlled Red Sea city of Port Sudan, targeting key civilian facilities, including the airport and a hospital.
On Tuesday, drones hit a fuel depot near the port and the airport, according to multiple eyewitnesses, rattling the city and leaving its streets nearly deserted. Khalid Ali Aleisir, Sudan’s minister of information and the official government spokesman, accused the group, known as the R.S.F., of carrying out a “criminal and terrorist attack” in a post on social media.
“I assure our steadfast Sudanese people that the civil defense forces and all security agencies are performing their duties to the fullest, and that the will of the Sudanese people will remain unbreakable,” Mr. Aleisir said in another post that showed him standing in front of a giant plume of smoke.
The drones also hit the upmarket Marina Hotel, where diplomats were believed to be staying, witnesses said. The hotel is close to government buildings.
No casualties were reported, and the R.S.F. has not taken responsibility for the attacks.
On Sunday, the paramilitary group attacked Port Sudan for the first time since the start of the war in 2023, ratcheting up tensions in a conflict that has already killed an estimated 15,000 people and displaced nearly 13 million.
Using drones capable of hitting targets hundreds of miles away, the group targeted an air base and an ammunition warehouse, a military spokesman said on Sunday. While the initial damage was limited, the attacks did not spare civilian facilities.
Mohamed Ahmed said that when he saw smoke over the depot, it was a sign that the violence was creeping ever closer, he said. Mr. Ahmed, 40, had fled Khartoum when the war started.
“I will not be displaced for another time,” he said, adding that he might send his family away if the fighting escalates.
“They are both destroying the country’s infrastructure, and eventually, only a destroyed and empty country will remain,” he said.
Thousands of civilians fled to Port Sudan as fighting between the R.S.F. and the Sudanese military reduced Khartoum to rubble. As famine followed the fighting, aid groups with limited access to the conflict zones have used Port Sudan as a base to deliver humanitarian relief.
In March, Sudan’s military pushed the paramilitary forces out of central Khartoum, retaking the shelled-out presidential palace and the central bank in what was a momentous shift in more than two years of conflict.
The African Union said in a statement this week that it was dismayed by the violence, which “represents a dangerous escalation in the ongoing conflict and a direct threat to the lives of civilians, humanitarian access, and regional stability.”
Abdi Latif Dahir contributed reporting.
