Sudan’s almost 50 million war-weary citizens are unable to make payments or communicate with the outside world due to a communications network outage that has been attributed to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. This has hindered relief distribution in the country.
Since April, thousands of people have died, almost 8 million have been displaced, and hunger warnings have been raised as a result of the RSF’s battle with Sudan’s army for control of the nation.
The RSF started to take down the networks on February 5 and finished the blackout two days later, according to four industry sources who spoke with Reuters.
The RSF now controls much of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, as well as part of its based infrastructure, including the telecom companies’ offices, following ten months of fighting.
After 10 months of conflict, the RSF controls most of the capital Khartoum and some of Sudan’s infrastructure that is based there, including the headquarters of the telecoms providers.
The RSF did not respond to requests for comment. An RSF source said on Feb. 5 the paramilitary had nothing to do with the outages.
The sources said that RSF soldiers had threatened the blackout unless engineers restored service to the western Darfur region, which the RSF controls and which has experienced a blackout for months.
A telecom industry official blamed the situation there on lack of fuel and dangerous working conditions.
