(Bloomberg) -- Sudanese military leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan escaped a drone attack on a military camp that killed five people, Arabic media reported, upping the stakes in the nation’s more than yearlong civil war.
Two strikes hit the facility in the eastern town of Gebeit on Wednesday after the end of a military graduation ceremony, Sudan’s army said in a statement. It reported the death toll and said others were injured.
The military didn’t mention Burhan’s presence, although state news before the assault ran a story on him attending the ceremony. The Al-Arabiya news channel said he wasn’t hurt and had moved to Port Sudan, the seat of the country’s military-led government. It cited people it didn’t identify.
Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces militia have both used drones against the other during a brutal 15-month conflict the US estimates may have killed some 150,000 people. The attack came as Washington urges both sides to attend peace talks in Switzerland in August.
Millions of Sudanese have fled their homes and are at risk of starvation since a long-simmering dispute between the army and RSF erupted into full-blown war in April 2023. The United Nations describes it as the world’s biggest displacement crisis.
(Updates with army statement throughout.)
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