Fighting around Sudan‘s largest oil refinery set the sprawling complex ablaze, satellite data analyzed by The Associated Press (AP) yesterday showed, sending thick and black polluted smoke over the country’s capital.
The attacks around the refinery, owned by the Sudanese government and the Chinese state-run China National Petroleum Corp, represent the latest woe in a civil war between the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan’s military, who blamed each other for the blaze.
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide, have not halted the fighting.
Photo: Planet Labs PBC via AP
The al-Jaili refinery sits about 60km 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. Sudanese media report the RSF also surrounded the refinery with fields of landmines to slow any advance.
However, the facility, capable of handling 100,000 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 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 behavior 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 on Thursday night alleged 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 last year.
Neither the Sudanese military nor the RSF offered evidence to support their dueling allegations.
China, Sudan’s largest trading partner before the war, has not acknowledged the blaze at the refinery. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS