The fight against the largest oil refinery in Sudan established the extensive flame complex, the satellite data analyzed by Associated Press shows on Saturday, sending coarse and black smoke on the country’s capital.
Loyal forces to the military of Sudan under the general general of the ABDEL-Fattah Burhan Army then said they captured the refinery, owned by the Government of Sudan and the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. The installation represents an award for a long time for the military in the military in His civil war. With the rebel fast support force.
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including an American evaluation that the RSF and its representatives are committing genocide, have not stopped fighting.
The Al-Jaili refinery is located about 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Jartum, the capital. The refinery has been subject to previous attacks, since the RSF has claimed the control of the installation since April 2023 and its forces had been monitoring it. The local Sudanese media, the RSF, also surrounded the refinery with field mines fields to delay any advance.
But the installation, capable of handling 100,000 barrels of oil per day, remained widely intact until Thursday. That day, an attack in the refinery establishes fires in the complex, according to NASA satellite satellite data that trace forest fires worldwide.
The satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC on Friday for the AP showed vast areas of the flame refinery. The images, taken right after 12 pm GMT (7 am et), showed flames shooting towards the sky at several points. The oil tanks in the installation were burned, covered with soot.
Gruids black smoke feathers rose on the site, transported to the south to Jardum by the wind. Exposure to that smoke can exacerbate respiratory problems and increase cancer risks.
In a statement published on Thursday, the Sudanese army claimed that the RSF was responsible for the fire in the refinery.
The RSF “deliberately set fire to the Khartum refinery in Al-Jaili this morning in a desperate attempt to destroy the infrastructure of this country,” reads the statement.
“This hateful behavior reveals the scope of the crime and decline of this militia … (and) increases our determination to pursue it everywhere until we release every centimeter from its filth.”
The RSF, meanwhile, alleged Thursday night that Sudanese military planes dropped “barrel bombs” in the installation, “destroying it completely.” The RSF has affirmed that the Sudanese army uses old commercial load planes to release barrel bombs, as one that crashed into mysterious circumstances in October.
Neither the Sudanese army nor the RSF offered evidence to support their accusations of grief. But on Saturday, multiple videos of Burhan’s forces emerged who claimed to have entered the refinery complex, the sound of heavy shots heard in the background.
Sudan military spokesman Brig. General Nabil Abdallah also told AP that they had taken control of the refinery. The RSF did not immediately approach the claim, or another for the Sudan Army, they had broken a siege of months at the headquarters of the body of Signal in northern Jartum.
China, the largest shopping partner in Sudan before the war, has not recognized the refinery fire. The China Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comments.
China moved to the Sudan oil industry after Chevron Corp. left in 1992 amid the violence aimed at oil workers in another civil war. South Sudan separated to become his own country in 2011, taking 75% of what had been the oil reserves of Sudan with him.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, “continues with great concern the recent climbing of the fight in Sudan,” a statement from his office said on Friday, specifically mentioning the attack of the oil refinery.
“The Secretary General urges the parties to refrain from all the actions that could have dangerous consequences for Sudan and the region, including the serious economic and environmental implications,” the statement said.
Losing the refinery would have an important effect on the economies of Sudan and South Sudan.
“The destruction of the refinery would force Sudanese people to trust more expensive fuel imports,” said Timothy Liptot in an analysis for the small weapons survey in May 2024. “As the conflict progresses, a rule that exists Between the RSF and ((the Sudanese Army) against damaging the accumulated capital of Sudan is breaking, with permanent damage to the increasingly possible sudan refining infrastructure. “
Sudan has been unstable since a popular uprising forced the elimination of the dictator for a long time Omar al-Bashir in 2019. A short-term transition to democracy was deranged when Burhan and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the RSF joined the forces to the forces To lead a military coup in October in October in October in October. 2021.
Al-Bashir faces charges in the International Criminal Court on the realization of a genocidal campaign in the early 2000s in the western region of Darfur with Janjaweed, the precursor of the RSF. Rights and UN groups say that RSF and allied Arab militias are attacking African ethnic groups again in this war.
The Biden administration also sanctioned Burhan in its last days on the “lethal attacks of its forces against civilians, including air attacks against protected infrastructure, including schools, markets and hospitals.” He also said that Burhan’s troops were “responsible for the routine and intentional denial of humanitarian access, using food deprivation as a war tactics.”
The RSF and the Sudan Army began to fight each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive while the Hambruna sweep parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a much higher number of deaths in the civil war.
