Deaths Reported as 10-day Blackout, Heatwave Hit Key Sudan Cities

Smoke rises from the Atbara power substation for the 4th time following an alleged drone strike by the RSF on April 25, 2025.

July 26 2025 

(PORT SUDAN) – A 10-day-long power outage combined with a severe heatwave has led to deaths from sunstroke in the key Sudanese cities of Port Sudan and Atbara, residents and a civic leader said on Saturday.

The crisis has crippled essential services, including water supplies and hospitals, in cities now housing hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Sudan’s ongoing conflict.

“Dozens are dying under tin-roof houses, in the streets, and in workers’ dormitories,” Abdullah Obshar, rapporteur of the Beja Nazirates Council, said in a press statement criticizing authorities for their “incompetence.”

“When people collapse in the streets and are carried away… from the scorching sunstroke… know that a real disaster is happening,” he said.

The blackout has caused a severe water shortage in the northern city of Atbara after it shut down the main pumping station. The outage there was reportedly caused by a shipping container falling on a transformer station.

Citizen Osman Ahmed told Sudan Tribune that residents are forced to buy potentially contaminated water from donkey-drawn carts, raising fears of a cholera outbreak.

In both cities, residents reported unbearable conditions as summer temperatures soared. One resident in Atbara said people’s “only concern all day is to find the shade of any tree to sit under, after homes have become unbearable due to the heat.”

The situation highlights the strain on infrastructure in Port Sudan, which has served as Sudan’s administrative capital since the conflict, which began in April 2023, destroyed much of Khartoum.