According to residents of neighboring Omdurman, the explosions occurred at a military base and a power station in the area, causing a power outage. In Atbara, about 300 kilometers north of the metropolitan area, there are reports of drones.
"The air defenses shot them down, but I saw fires breaking out and heard the sound of explosions in the eastern parts of the city," an anonymous resident of Atbara told the news agency.
The capital area of Khartoum and Omdurman was previously heavily contested during the raging civil war. It has been controlled by the Sudanese National Army since May of this year and has been relatively calm since then.
Talk of a ceasefire
The army forces' opponents in the war, the army-like RSF forces, said on Thursday that they were in favor of a ceasefire proposal presented by the Americans.
The devastating war in Sudan has been going on since April 2023, when military factions that had seized power in an armed coup came to blows and began fighting each other.
The Khartoum region lies along the Nile River in eastern Sudan, but most of the recent violence has been in Darfur province in the west, where the RSF recently captured the larger town of al-Fashir – the army’s last major stronghold in Darfur – followed by reports of mass executions and fears of ethnic cleansing.
New directions?
A few days ago, attacks took place in the province of Kordofan – east of Darfur on the way to the major cities on the Nile – which has been interpreted as RSF heading east again.
On Friday morning, independent medical groups in Sudan reported that RSF had shelled the besieged town of Dilling in South Kordofan, hitting a hospital, among other things.
Sudan is a vast country, one of the largest in Africa in terms of surface area. From the disputed al-Fashir in the east to the capital area, it is about 800 kilometers.
