By Brian Kiprono - Reporter
Kenya, January 4 2026 -Residents of El Obeid woke to darkness and fear on Sunday after a drone strike hit the city’s main power station at dawn, knocking out electricity supplies and underscoring how Sudan’s grinding war is increasingly disrupting civilian life.
The attack targeted the El Obeid thermal power plant in North Kordofan, damaging key machinery and triggering a fire that forced authorities to shut down the facility. While no deaths were reported, officials confirmed that several people were injured in the incident.
“The White Station was attacked by marching planes at dawn today, resulting in direct injuries and a fire of the machinery building at the station, which led to a power outage,” the Sudanese Electricity Company said in a statement.
Civil Defence teams were deployed to the site to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading to nearby areas. Engineers are expected to carry out a technical assessment once the fire is fully extinguished to determine the extent of the damage and the timeline for restoring power.
“The civil defense forces are making great efforts to extinguish the fire, and the engineering department team will conduct a technical evaluation of the effects of the attack,” the company added.
Eyewitnesses said the strike was part of a wave of overnight and early-morning drone attacks that hit several locations in and around El Obeid, including areas near Al-Amal Hospital and the city’s airport. Air defence systems were seen engaging drones over the city in multiple waves from Saturday night into Sunday morning.
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The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were blamed for the drone assaults, which also extended to White Nile State. In that region, army anti-aircraft units reportedly shot down three suicide drones aimed at the Kenana Air Base, while a fourth crashed near Asalaya, north of the state capital Rabak.
The blackout in El Obeid comes as Sudan’s humanitarian crisis deepens nearly three years into the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. According to the World Food Programme, more than 21 million people—almost half the population—are facing acute food insecurity.
“Famine was first confirmed in August 2024 in North Darfur’s Zamzam camp. A protracted famine is now taking hold and, without humanitarian assistance, hundreds of thousands of people could die,” WFP warned.
Displacement is also accelerating. UNICEF says nearly 40,000 people fled parts of North Kordofan between late October and mid-November 2025 alone, as fighting spreads and access for aid agencies remains severely restricted.
