Sudan’s biggest oil refinery is on fire as its bloody civil war rages

Fighting around Sudan's largest oil refinery set the sprawling complex ablaze, data analyzed by The AP on shows, sending thick smoke over the country’s capital.

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

Forces loyal to Sudan’s military under army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan later claimed they captured the refinery, owned by Sudan’s government and the state-run China National Petroleum Corp. The facility represents a long-sought prize for the military in its civil war with the rebel Rapid Support Force.

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

The al-Jaili refinery sits some 60 kilometers (40 miles) 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 and 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 100,000 barrels of oil a day, remained broadly intact until Thursday. On that day, an attack at the refinery set fires across the complex, according to satellite data from NASA satellites that track wildfires worldwide.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sudan-oil-refinery-fire-bloody-civil-war-rages-rcna189254

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