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Drones attacked Sudan's capital Khartoum and the northern cities of Atbara and El-Damer at dawn Wednesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and witnesses reported, in what appeared to be a coordinated strike after months of relative calm in the capital.
An AFP correspondent in Khartoum reported a drone attack around 5 a.m. local time, or 0300 GMT, along with the sound of anti-aircraft missiles coming from the direction of the army's Wadi Seidna base, just north of Omdurman.
Witnesses in Atbara and El-Damer, both controlled by the Sudanese army, also reported hearing explosions and seeing drones in the sky.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Sudan has been engulfed in war since April 2023 between the military, led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Khartoum, which was recaptured by the army last year, has previously been targeted by drone strikes but had experienced relative calm for months.
About 2.3 million people have returned to the capital since the army retook it.
Aid workers estimate that more than 200,000 people have been killed across Sudan in a conflict the U.N. has described as a "war of atrocities."
The fighting has also created what the U.N. describes as the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
Burhan and Daglo were once allies before becoming rivals in a power struggle.
Their forces have spent much of the war in a relative stalemate, with both sides unwilling to enter negotiations as they seek a decisive advantage on the battlefield.
The RSF consolidated its control over the vast western region of Darfur last year and has since sought to capture more territory in southern Kordofan and along Sudan's southeastern border with Ethiopia.
The army controls much of the country's center, north and east.
Last month, government forces secured a battlefield victory in Kordofan by pushing the RSF away from a key highway leading toward Khartoum.
Following that setback, Daglo said he would "unleash" his fighters.
RSF forces, which have been accused of war crimes including genocide, have since repeatedly threatened a large-scale retaliatory attack.
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