Sudan’s largest oil refinery set ablaze

The attacks around the refinery, owned by Sudan's government and the State-run China National Petroleum Corp., represent the latest woe in a war between the rebel Rapid Support Force and Sudan's military, who blamed each other for the blaze

Dubai: Fighting around Sudan’s largest oil refinery set the sprawling complex ablaze, satellite data analysed by The Associated Press on Saturday shows, sending thick, black polluted smoke over the country’s capital.

The attacks around the refinery, owned by Sudan’s government and the State-run China National Petroleum Corp., represent the latest woe in a war between the rebel Rapid Support Force and Sudan’s military, who blamed each other for the blaze.

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International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide, have not halted the fighting.

The al-Jaili refinery sits some 60 kilometers north of Khartoum, the capital. The refinery has been subject to previous attacks as the RSF has claimed control of the facility since April 2023, as their forces had been guarding it. Local Sudanese media report the RSF also surrounded the refinery with fields of landmines to slow any advance. But the facility, capable of handling 1,00,000 barrels of oil a day, remained broadly intact until Thursday.

An attack on Thursday at the oil field set fires across the complex, according to satellite data from NASA satellites that track wildfires worldwide.

Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC on Friday for the AP showed vast areas of the refinery ablaze. The images, shot just after 1200 GMT, showed flames shooting up into the sky in several spots. Oil tanks at the facility stood burned, covered in soot. Thick plumes of black smoke towered over the site, carried south toward Khartoum by the wind. Exposure to that smoke can exacerbate respiratory problems and raise cancer risks.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Sudanese military alleged the RSF was responsible for the fire at the refinery.

The RSF “deliberately set fire to the Khartoum refinery in al-Jaili this morning in a desperate attempt to destroy the infrastructures of this country,” the statement read. “This hateful behaviour reveals the extent of the criminality and decadence of this militia … (and) increases our determination to pursue it everywhere until we liberate every inch from their filth.”

The RSF for its part alleged Thursday night that Sudanese military aircraft dropped “barrel bombs” on the facility, “completely destroying it.” The RSF has claimed the Sudanese military uses old commercial cargo aircraft to drop barrel bombs, such as one that crashed under mysterious circumstances in October.

Neither the Sudanese military nor the RSF offered evidence to support their dueling allegations.