UN chief warns of ‘major escalation’ over Port Sudan strikes: spokesperson

Agencies

UN chief António Guterres is “gravely concerned” over drone attacks on a key Sudanese city sheltering displaced people, warning Wednesday against heightened conflict in the warring country.

“This major escalation could lead to large-scale civilian casualties and further destruction of critical infrastructure,” Guterres’s spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.

Strategic sites in Port Sudan have been targeted for four days by drone strikes blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Port Sudan is the main entry point for humanitarian aid into Sudan, and Dujarric said the attacks “threaten to increase humanitarian needs and further complicate aid operations in the country.”

Guterres is also “alarmed at the expansion of the conflict into an area that has served as a place of refuge for large numbers of people displaced from the capital, Khartoum, and other areas,” his spokesman said in the statement.

Port Sudan had been a safe haven, hosting hundreds of thousands of displaced people and United Nations offices.

Sudan’s government on Tuesday severed ties with the United Arab Emirates, which it accuses of supplying the rival paramilitaries with weapons used to attack the army.

A strike on Wednesday targeted Sudan’s biggest naval base, an army source told AFP

Sudan army-aligned government declares UAE ‘aggressor state,’ cuts ties