At least 30 killed after Sudan flooding causes dam to collapse – UN

PORT SUDAN, Sudan — At least 30 people were killed in northeast Sudan after a dam collapsed due to flooding, the United Nations' humanitarian office has said.

The war-torn country has experienced an intense rainy season since last month, with intermittent torrential flooding mainly in the country's north and east.

"Thirty fatalities have been confirmed" following the Sunday collapse of the Arbaat Dam in Sudan's Red Sea state, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cited a government delegation as saying Monday.

"However, the number of casualties could be much higher," it said, adding that "scores of people are reportedly missing or displaced".

The Arbaat Dam lies about 38 kilometres (24 miles) northwest of Port Sudan, the de facto seat of government after authorities were driven out of the capital Khartoum due to fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

"Up to 50,000 people living in areas to the west of the Dam have been severely affected," OCHA said.

"About 70 villages around Arbaat Dam have reportedly been affected by the flash flooding of which 20 villages have been destroyed," it added.

Sudan's health ministry on Monday said 132 people had died as a result of flooding and heavy rains in 10 states this year, with the heaviest flooding reported in the Northern and River Nile states.

Sudan has been gripped by fighting that broke out in April 2023 between the army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities and violations, including impeding the delivery of much-needed aid in the ravaged country, parts of which have been gripped by famine.

The impoverished country's infrastructure -- already fragile before the war -- has been decimated, with both sides accused of targeting civilian facilities and active fighting preventing repairs and maintenance.

At least 20 people were killed when Sudanese paramilitaries fired artillery at a camp for displaced people in the country's Darfur region, a local committee said.

"The information we have received so far on casualties among residents of Abu Shouk displacement camp is at least 20 killed and 32 wounded," the local resistance committee in El-Fasher said.

El-Fasher has been surrounded by the paramilitary RSF in a bid since May to capture the last major Darfur city out of its control.

The local committee, in a statement posted online late Monday, blamed the deaths on the "deliberate shelling by the (RSF) militias on the camp's market and square".

It did not specify when the attack occurred.

The El-Fasher committee is part of a grassroots network that used to organise pro-democracy protests and have coordinated front-line aid since the war between the army and the RSF began last year.

Intense fighting has pushed the Zamzam camp near El-Fasher into famine, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification review.

Barely any aid has reached Zamzam or the surrounding area, and assistance has only trickled into the entire Darfur region since the army-aligned government reopened the Adre crossing with Chad this month.

The United Nations said Tuesday a total of 38 trucks had crossed, carrying some 1,250 tons of aid targeting 119,000 people across the vast Darfur region, where over five million people are internally displaced.

Zamzam alone, some 400 kilometres away from the border, is home to around half a million people currently under threat of starvation.

The conflict in Sudan erupted in April 2023 and has since killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.

It has precipitated one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with several areas facing famine according to the United Nations.